(I need to call my androcologist)
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I learned a new word this week. Technically speaking, it’s not a new word, it’s just a word that’s new to me. It’s like when you’re at work, posting updates on facebook instead of actually working, and you share the news that you’d tried a new restaurant. Technically speaking, it’s not a new restaurant, it’s just a restaurant that you hadn’t been in before, where you whined about the parking, complained about the portions, and stiffed the waitress. And I say all this because I’m making a conscious effort to intentionally create an entire paragraph that doesn’t include one single thing worth hearing.

I do this in preparation for the upcoming midterm elections. Get used to long-winded.

The “new” word is cisgender, from the Latin cis, meaning “on this side of.” (Hence, the word cistern, which is literally translated as “on this side of a seagull.”)  Depending on whom you ask, cisgender is the opposite of transgender. (Hence, the word transtern, literally translated as “I can’t see your gender because that seagull’s in the way.”) You may have run across the cis/trans usage in the words Cisjordan and Transjordan, terms which describe being either nearer to or farther from Michael Jordan.

According to an adult German professional who, with a straight face, refers to himself as a sexologist, a cisgendered person is someone whose gender identity matches the sex that they were assigned at birth. (Actually, the German sexologist wanted to go with “genderologist,” but it wouldn’t fit on the business cards.)

This is part of that fashionable discussion about sex and gender being two different things. See, these days, if I understand the Politically Correct debate, “sex” refers to the particular collection of, shall we say, naughty bits that Mother Nature forced upon you at birth (can we still say Mother?). “Gender,” however, has come to be considered a choice, like salad dressing. At least one website claims to have identified sixty-three genders, although seven of them turned out to be the same Vegas showgirl. Other, more somber online analysts claim there are but four genders: Man, Woman, Both, and Neither. This should come as a great relief to architects who are tasked with building restaurant bathrooms.

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Invertebrate Sidebar: There’s a fungus named Schizophyllum commune that allegedly has over 28,000 different sexes, which, coincidentally, is 28,000 more than Sesame Street’s Big Bird, or CNN’s Anderson Cooper. Sadly, we were unable to interview the fungi researcher who tallied up the 28,000 sexes, because during all that leaning over, he hurt his back.
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Before the sexologist got involved and coined cisgender, scientist-types who couldn’t stay out of other people’s business used the term gender-normative. But it wasn’t long before somebody’s feelings got hurt because they thought they weren’t being called “normal.” Look, it’s not possible for everybody to be normal, any more than it’s possible for every diner in town to brag about being “voted best cheeseburger five years in a row.”

Cheeseburgers, by the way, only have two genders:

• It comes with bacon, right?
• I’m not ordering that.

I think a good alternative term for “gender-non-normative” might be “non-traditional.” After all, the Political Correctness Police seem to be comfortable with the construction non-traditional marriage, a term which may mean “bi-racial,” or “same-sex,” or “somehow they got the groom’s parents to pay for the wedding.” And more and more often, we seem to accept the concept of a non-traditional education, meaning “that kid can’t count or spell.” So a cisgendered individual would simply be someone who is so non-traditional that s/he’s looped all the way back around to traditional. Culturally speaking, they’ve lapped themselves.

And so, finally, to wrap things up, we get to the neologism womyn: a solution suggested by some of the more severe activist feminists, who aren’t yet indicted, to resolve the intolerably rude appearance of the letters m-a-n in the word woman. I don’t know why that burrs their binary bohemia, but it seems to really chap their chucked-out chastity. After all, according to Judeo-Christian traditions, the first woman was created from the rib of a man, though I think Eve would’ve left Adam’s chest cavity much neater.

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Single Guy Advice Sidebar: In jest, I once referred to someone I was dating as “rib meat.” She hit me with a bat.
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Some other “woman” substitutes currently being considered by the feminists are womxm and wimmin. I think that’s a bit mynipulative. Do we really want to go down that rabbit hole?

• Looks like Goldperson Sachs is in the news again
• Careful! Mind that open mynhole!
• Canada welcomes you to Womanitoba!
• Eastperson Kodak is looking to hire a HR Womanager
• Now on YouTube: Elton John’s “A Rocket Mxn”
• “I’ll have the personicotti and a tossed salad. Gender on the side.”

Sorry. I can’t support this, at least not at this time. But, hey, what do I know … after all, a myn doesn’t get to be sixty and single without admitting to some commitment issues, does s/he?