hi hello, you said something in a previous post that confused me and I’m curious if you could elaborate: “I could consider myself cisgender too, as I feel Ive always been non binary, just either lacking the words to describe it or my identity shifting between labels while remaining non binary at its core.” What does this mean ? This doesn’t seem very related to any of the definitions of cis I’ve heard, which are generally about relation to socially imposed gender or some similar concept . I was under the impression that a rather large portion of trans people (binary and not) feel they’ve always been whatever gender they are?
Hi to you! I honestly dont know about how many trans people view their gender as a constant and how many identify as trans because their gender changed. I vaguely know that the idea of "Ive always known, Ive always been this gender" was more popular as an explanation in the past, but it's still very much a representation of a good part of transgender people's experience. I also know that some people others would call trans dont feel like the label applies to them, because their gender identity has always been the same.
There are two big interpretation of trans and cis. One relates to society, so how someone was assigned, raised and viewed by others, which may or may not be consistent, and one relates to if one's internal feeling of gender has changed or not. I think the first one is what is most discussed and most known, but the latter is a concept important to things like genderfluidity.
Genderfluidity reveals that one's gender can indeed change, so it is not necessarily a constant. Some trans people live as one gender and then when they explore their gender identity, find that that gender doesnt really feel like theirs anymore, that it has changed. These people dont necessarily identify as genderfluid at all, as genderfluid is a label more popular with people who feel that the shift in identity is common or significant enough for it to be a characteristic of their gender. So it's really unclear how common of an experience that is, since there's very little research with everyone being more preoccupied on if we should exist at all.
What I can mention is that this internal consideration of cisness and transness is sometimes part of why some people identify as cistrans. Their gender identity may be trans in how it's viewed in society, but they didnt have to go through a journey to discover it had changed, so they feel it's more intuitive to describe that aspect as cis. Thus, cistrans! Though this is far from the only reason people identify this way.
Non binary people in general can and do identify as cis, or otherwise feel that the trans label isnt correct, when applied to them. That all comes with an internal perception of themselves, as according to the social definition of cisgender, they wouldnt fit in it since non binary isnt included in it. It doesnt make their identity less valid though, and if the part where I said that non binary people can be cis makes sense to you, then it might help tie together the rest of the things I said. I very much encourage everyone who may explain further or from personal experience to add in their thoughts!
I hope this explains a little bit, unfortunately I dont have the sources to talk about anything more specific than this- I simply dont know the ratio to which this is shared by other people within the community, but do feel free to ask more if you want! Ill always try my best to answer
