What are cis and trans alternate types of? I don’t think it’s “gender identity” because wouldn’t that just be man, woman or nonbinary regardless of whether they’re cis or trans? Cis/trans just being a qualifier?
If the answer is “I am cis” or “I am trans”, what is the question?
Edit: Someone came up with the term “gender congruity” and (after looking up the definition of “congruity”) I think this describes what I’m talking about perfectly.
You can think of ‘cis’ and ‘trans’ as meaning roughly ‘this side’ and ‘other side’.
In a gender context the ‘sides’ are male and female and the items are physical gender and mental gender. If both genders are on the same side, both on ‘this side’, that’s ‘cis’. If they are different, one ‘this side’, one ‘other side’, that’s ‘trans’.
So, if the answer is “I am cis/trans” the question is “Is your mental gender identity the same as your physical gender identity?” “I am cis” then means “My mental gender is the same as my physical gender” and “I am trans” means “My mental gender is not the same as my physical gender”.
Note that ‘physical gender’ is not always clear. Some people are born with ambiguous genitalia and may be surgically altered to make their genitalia more closely resemble the commonly recognized pattern for ‘male’ or ‘female’, and some may be left as-is. In some cases this can be a reason for a trans gender identity.
Before “cisgender” became a widely publicized term, about the only time I ever heard the term “cis” was discussing Cisalpine versus Transalpine Gaul in ancient Rome. (Cisalpine Gaul being northern Italy and Transalpine Gaul southern France, more or less - the parts of Gaul that were on the same side or the opposite side of the Alps from Rome).
Yep, as a space-fan I mostly heard it as ‘cislunar’ vs ‘translunar’.
Chemistry. Cis-2-n-ene vs Trans-2-n-ene. First one is all carbons on the same side and the latter is carbons on opposite sides.
That is how I remember it as well.
For those not well versed in organic chemistry or needs a refresher, where it is the most likely scenario you would encounter such terms, let me clarify a few points:
The -ene suffix indicates there is a double bond in the compound
The -2- indicates that the double bond is on the 2nd carbon, between carbon 2 and 3 (beta position). The placement of the n in the above post is incorrect as the location should be beside the functional group, hence the example should have been “-n-2-ene”
The -n- is a variable for the length of the carbon (e.g. prop- (3 C), but- (4 C), pent- (5 C), hex- (6 C), etc.).
Due to symmetry, you do not see the cis/trans-isomers (aka E/Z and syn/anti) unless until there is at least 4 carbons.
Hence, the easiest way to demonstrate this, is to show but-2-ene
Due to priority, the cis/trans is based on the relative position of the alkyl group rather than hydrogen in this compound (review the IUPAC naming system if you want THAT refresher)
A cis-but-2-ene has the C1 and C4 (alkyls to the left and right of the beta double bond respectively) are on the same side.
Trans-but-2-ene has C1 and C4 on opposite sides.
Hope that helps clarify matters for people. If not, look up the topic on your favorite search engine. I highly recommend checking out the Wikipedia entry first though as it may resolve it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/But-2-ene
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cis-trans_isomerism