Essentially, the difference is that words specifying sexual orientation are referring to something real and usually used when relevant. (I would object to people specifying sexual orientation when it's not at all relevant, maybe.)

"Cis" is a term that only means something to people within a certain ideology. It's like referring to people as "non-Operating-Thetan."

"Straight women" refers to a subset of women. It has always been a subset of women. Even if you're talking to one of those weirdos who thinks that lesbians and bisexual women are some kind of modern invention, the reality is that any of these subcategories are no more and no less women than all the other subcategories.

"Cis women," on the other hand, encompasses the entire category of women as it has always been defined. It is an attempt to take the entire category and make it into a subcategory in order to make room for a group that has never belonged to that category.

Because of this redefinition, you now cannot talk about any of the differences between women OR men in any kind of meaningful way because the category of women has been expanded to include men and the category of men has been expanded to include women. And these are not even necessarily men and women who have DSDs or sexual ambiguity or are even particularly androgynous. Now a man who has lived his whole life as a man, is balding and bearded and 50 years old and has fathered 3 kids, is considered a woman--just not a "cis woman" which is just another subcategory of woman.

It is not about wanting to be called normal instead of cis. It is just that "cis" women are the only people referred to by the word "women" who are actually women, and the irritating implication with the word "cis" is that we are a specific kind of woman that you have to specify so that people know that this time you don't mean balding 50-year-old beardy dad, who is also a woman.

But now it doesn't matter, because TIMs are calling themselves cis anyway now. Soon there will be absolutely no clear, socially acceptable, and accurate ways to talk about the differences between the sexes, and that is the goal.

If cis actually just meant “doesn’t identify as trans” there wouldn’t really be a problem. They also define it as “identifying with the gender assigned at birth” though. Since radfems want to abolish gender, calling us cis is completely incorrect. That would be us identifying with the sexist roles and stereotypes that help oppress us.

If they must label us as something in trans language it should either be nonbinary or agender. The only women who can accurately be called cis are those who actively identify with and try to fulfill all or most of the roles and stereotypes of femininity and make base their identity around that. I’d say tradwives can accurately be described as cis. But even for them, it’s something they’re socialized into, not something they’re born as.

"I reject the binary of cis and trans."

"Cis" only exists to mean "not trans".

Lots of other such terms exist for other groups to define the in-group vs out-group. For example:

• "autistic" vs "allistic"
• "asexual/romantic" vs "allosexual/romantic"
• "intersex" vs "endosex"

The difference is for those, you don't ever see anybody trying to force the out-group to accept and actively adopt the new labels.

In contrast, TRAs push "cis" everywhere, and many do use it as a slur ("cissy").

"Cis" relies on the belief of the existence of an inner "gender identity" and then imposes that "gender identity" on all of us, while same people who push for "gender identity" cannot even explain what it is aside from sexist stereotypes and attitudes which a majority of women don't care for one bit.

"Cis" is an incredibly sexist and presumptuous term that is entirely meaningless since "trans" is also meaningless.

There is no subset of "woman" that isn't female. I don't pretend to be the opposite sex. There is no word needed for this. If a man pretending to be a woman needs referring to, "transvestite" does just fine and everyone knows exactly what that is.

Having a label for a majority trait is fine. Nothing is wrong with saying "right-handed." My objection to the term "cis" isn't about the prevalence of being "cis" vs "trans." I object to it because accepting the term "cis" means accepting "trans" as a valid category. There is no need to say "cis women," because so-called "cis women" are the only actual women.

When Samantha Lux, an American TIM, made a video on this term, the literal most popular comment was:

I'm old enough to remember (in the late 60s - early/mid 70s) when straight people objected to the term "straight" because they preferred to be called "normal."

I'm old enough to remember the 1960s and 70s too. But I have no recollection of heterosexual people commonly and widely objecting to being called straight or hetero back then. I am sure that some people did object. But I don't remember this being a commonplace "thing" amongst the wide public in the places I spent time in back then. Which was mainly the USA, my home country, but also included some other farther flung places too because during the 1970s I travelled abroad quite a bit.

But back in the 1960s and 70s, most people regardless of their sexual orientation didn't feel the need to make which sex they fancied the centerpiece of their "identity " and constantly let the wider world know which way they "swung" like many people today do. Even lesbians and gay men who were "out and proud" tended to be out only in certain circles. Since there was no social media, there was no mechanism for making the whole world privy to information about your innermost desires and who/what sent your heart racing and got your juices flowing.

Also, it's hard to make direct comparisons because in the 1960s and 70s, the social climate was very different even in the freewheeling, liberal Western countries. In the USA where I grew up, it was widely assumed that the majority of people would end up in a heterosexual pairing - either because they'd meet someome they genuinely fancied and fell in love with, or because that was the expected thing to do. As a result, a situation of "compulsory heterosexuality" prevailed for many, which created special difficulties for lesbians and gay men.

But at the same time, in the 60s and a 70s, it was also widely assumed in the circles I travelled in that it was also totally normal to not to date and to remain single/unpaired-off even in adulthood because some people were naturally just "not the marrying kind."

"Not the marrying kind" could mean an adult who just wasn't interested in romantic/sexual pair bonding at all. Or it could mean an adult or adolescent with a "higher calling" that caused them to enter a monastic religious order and take a vow of celibacy. Or it could mean an adolescent adult who was probably lesbian or gay and felt most comfortable keeping their hearts' desires and their private lives to themselves or within a small circle of intimates. Or it could mean someone who hadn't figured themselves out yet. Or it could mean someone who was was simply a "loner," "lifelong bachelor," "old maid" or "singleton."

On top of that, etiquette standards of the era made it pretty taboo to ask other people you went to to school with, worked with or hung out with a lot of probing questions about either their sexual orientation or the extent of their sex drives.

For example, when I was in junior high, high school and college and in the work world in the 70s, plenty of people made their own sexual orientation and sex drives clear to others by openly talking about their crushes and romantic interests and of course by being overtly "on the make," dating, "chasing ass," hooking up, pairing off, "shacking up," getting married, cheating, divorcing, sleeping around. But at the same time, plenty of people didn't openly engage in pair-bonding activities, didn't seem interested in doing so, and generally kept their cards pretty close to their vests.

Most people in the 60s and 70s that I knew respected other people's right not to share all their innermost desires and sexual orientation with their schoolmates, co-workers, chums. Even amongst close friends, it was widely although not universally considered bad form to press and pry. Whilst you might wonder or suspect that a sibling, cousin, classmate, roommate, work colleague or friend was gay, lesbian or bisexual, the general rule was to wait until they decided to tell you that. Coming out and asking a friend or co-worker if they were gay, lesbian or bisexual was regarded as unfairly putting them on the spot or and being overly nosey and intrusive.

Or at least that was the case for people who were heterosexual and/or had a mostly heterosexual dating and mating history. Some same-sex attracted people hewed to a different standard. Now that I'm thinking about it, I remember that when I was in college and later on in my later 20s and early 30s, quite a few lesbians I knew asked me if I was a lesbian myself - which made sense since I spent a lot of time in lesbian circles. When I was in college, a couple of lesbians I knew, including a professor, constantly brought up the topic, telling me that they knew I was really a lesbian at heart and opining that the only reason I dated blokes was that I was in denial and too afraid and lily-livered to come out. I remember feeling awkard, embarrassed and bad about myself on those occasions, but thankfully the women I knew who did that were a tiny minority.

But back to the original topic: I really don't recall heterosexual people en masse objecting to the term "straight" in the 1960s and 70s. Because generally speaking, in everyday life most people were not in the habit of having that label forced or imposed on them by others, and there was no pressure to adopt that label for oneself. Or at least that's how I remember the era. But as everyone's memory has holes, my recollections might be faulty.

So if "cis" means normal then "trans" means abnormal. Which it is. Virtually everyone in the world thinks it is abnormal to think you are, or could become, the opposite sex. In that case we don't actually need the word "cis". Men and women are the biological sex they are born asand we can just call them male and female. Anyone who thinks they are otherwise is abnormal (ie: "trans").

Homosexuals aren’t demanding that people think that we are heterosexual. TIFs and TIMs are demanding acceptance in groups that they are not part of

It would be abusive to force people to pretend that they couldn’t see that two women in a couple is lesbian couple and not a ‘trans straight’ one. The comparison doesn’t work because we aren’t asking people to pretend that we are not actually homosexual

Also ‘trans’ means ‘on the opposite side of’ or ‘across from’. So what are they on the opposite side of, exactly? I used to remind them that a ‘trans woman’ therefore meant the ‘opposite of’ a woman, i.e. a man

“Homosexual”, “straight”, “bisexual”, various paraphilias are all types of sexuality. When someone doesn’t have a sexuality, they’re “asexual”. We don’t need to clarify that a person is sexual by adding a prefix because having a sexuality is the norm while being asexual is the deviation from that norm. It’s a binary.

Just like “blond”, “curly”, “thin” are types of hair while “bald” is the deviation from the norm of having hair. We don’t say “cis bald” because we don’t need to. You’re either bald or have hair.

There are only two sexes. If you deviate from that norm, you have a genetic disorder.

To say “cis” means that there’s more than two types of “woman” or “man” but there’s not. You are either a man or a woman or have a disorder.

If it’s “gender” that they’re talking about then that’s a made up social construct. Gender is a division based on how society treats the two sexes. “Trans” is just a way “I want society to treat me like the opposite sex”. But it’s a feeling or a personality trait, that’s all. We don’t need a word to describe someone who doesn’t have that particular trait that a minuscule portion of the population has. I’m not “cis lazy” because I’m not lazy. I’m not “cis motivated” because I’m not particularly motivated either.