Die Cis Scum

About

Die Cis Scum is a phrase used by some transgenders as an oppression towards people who are identified as cisgendered and a reply to the common death threats transgenders have to deal with. Although cisgender describes a gender identity where the individual’s self-perception of their gender matches the sex they were assigned at birth, the term cis has gained usage in certain kinds of social justice circles as a negative slur against those who question or dislike the choice of transsexuality.

Origin

On November 21st, 2011, Tumblr user Char the Butcher made a post in which they shows their new tattoo which reads “Die Cis Scum” (shown below).^[1] In the post, Char explains they got the tattoo for Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day to memorializes those killed as a result of transphobia and highlights the continuing violence endured by the trans community, and that the tattoo is meant to be a threat towards cisgenders. The post was also featured on the Tranarchism Wordpress blog the same day by blogger Asher Bauer,^[2] who was also the person who made the tattoo for Char.

Spread

On March 7th, 2012, Youtube BlackLipstckBuxomBoy^[3] made a video titled “Die Cis Scum” giving an opinion towards the controversy caused by the phrase. The video was met by mainly negative and mocking opinions and also received various replies towards it. Although the original video was eventually removed^[4] from Youtube, a post^[5] on the r/cringe sub-Reddit mocking the video from February 1st, 2013, which managed to get more than 400 upvotes at May of the same year, shows it was still online at that point.

On March 3rd, 2012, the Dear Cis People^[6]single topic blog which uploads image macros showing anonymous messages from transgenders, in a style of just little things, aimed at cisgenders. The blog’s first image macro showed a message mentioning the perturbs caused by the “Die Cis Scum” phrase (shown below).^[7] As of May 2013, the blog contains over 650 posts.