Podcast: Queer Lit (LS 31 · TOP 5% what is this?)
Episode: “Cisgender” with Perry Zurn
Pub date: 2026-07-20

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Who coined the term cis and why are some people calling it a slur? Amazing return guest Perry Zurn joins me to discuss what the concept of cis does, why it’s helpful to look at its origins and etymology and where it might oversimplify the project of gender. Not one to be missed!

References:
Perry Zurn’s Cisgender: Disorienting a Category (Duke UP, 2026)
Perry Zurn’s How We Make Each Other: Trans Life at the Edge of the University (Duke UP, 2024)
John Hollister
Riva Lehrer’s Golem Girl
Marquis Bey’s Cistem Failure: Essays on Blackness and Cisgender (Duke UP, 2022)
Stephanie Clare’s Nonbinary: A Feminist Autotheory (Cambridge UP, 2023)
Jonathan Ned Katz’s The Invention of Heterosexuality (1995)

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

What does cis mean?
Which term is older: cis or trans? When does the term cis emerge?
Which community coined the term cisgender and why?
What is Perry saying about simplified notions of cis and which example does he give?
How does Perry put disability and race in dialogue with cisness and transness?

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