Elon Musk is saying that the words “cis” and “cisgender” are considered “slurs” on Twitter.
The owner of the social media platform made the statement after a user said he was allegedly targeted by a “trans activist” after he “rejected the word cis” as he didn’t identify with it.
“Repeated, targeted harassment against any account will cause the harassing accounts to receive, at minimum, temporary suspensions,” Musk tweeted in response. “The words ‘cis’ or ‘cisgender’ are considered slurs on this platform.”
After the words “cis” and “cisgender” became trending topics on Twitter, Merriam-Webster acknowledged the terms to further explain what they mean.
“Cisgender describes someone whose internal sense of gender corresponds with the sex the person was identified as having at birth,” reads the definition.
Merriam-Webster also defined “slur” as being “a word or phrase that is intended to insult or disparage someone.” At the moment, “cisgender” is not classified as a slur as “its variants are overwhelmingly used neutrally,” the site added.
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Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling weighed in on the terms calling “cis” an “ideological language signifying belief in the unfalsifiable concept of gender identity.”
“You have a perfect right to believe in unprovable essences that may or may not match the sexed body, but the rest of us have a right to disagree, and to refuse to adopt your jargon,” she tweeted.
Musk replied to Rowling’s tweet adding, “Exactly.”
Twitter’s hateful conduct policy doesn’t state what words are considered slurs but it does “prohibit targeting others with repeated slurs, tropes or other content that intends to degrade or reinforce negative or harmful stereotypes about a protected category.”
Source: Deadline
