I hadn't heard of 'cis-gendered', but I agree that it's annoying and sometimes insulting to be labelled solely and improperly as a distinguisher from another group.
First of all, the obvious: atheist. Unlike 'cis-gendered' versus 'trans-gendered', there's a true dichotomy between 'theist' and 'atheist', but atheism itself means nothing more than not being part of the theism camp. To understand why the label is annoying, you'd have to consider what it would be like to be labelled an atoothfairyist, as though toothfairyism had an intellectually valid leg to stand on and those who deny it are freaks. There's a further annoyance within atheism itself between the terms 'strong atheist' versus 'weak atheist'. The prior is used to describe someone who's absolutely, 100% certain that there are no deities, while the latter is either uncertain or unconcerned. However, there's an implication here that the 'weak atheist' is less likely or less capable of acknowledging or defending their lack of belief when the contrary may be and is often true. What exactly is a weak lack of belief if not a partial belief?
When so-called 'pro-lifers' were pointed out the hypocracy of their self-labelling, in the light that many of them were also in favor of the death penalty (hence they couldn't call their opposition 'pro-death'), a handful of them graciously accepted their being relabelled as 'anti-abortion', but apparently under the hidden condition that their opposition be relabelled from 'pro-choice' to 'pro-abortion'. I don't think they quite understand how relabelling works. Until they've pointed out the hypocracy of the 'pro-choice' stance, they aren't given free reign to imply that we either enjoy abortions or would prioritize it as the first option whenever possible.
From what I can tell, counter-labels that are offensive (whether deliberately or not) usually won't stick unless they're technically true. I doubt the term 'cis-gendered' will last, and certainly hope it won't.
I wouldn't call this phenomenon 'binary thinking', though. All too often I'll come across those who frequently make false dichotomies that tend also to deny the correlatives. It seems the problem doesn't stem so much from black-and-white thinking as it does from not thinking logically. Although I doubt I've cured you of your bafflement to their thinking, and I agree that it's baffling, I hope I've at least made it a little less baffling.
Concurred!
First of all, the obvious: atheist. Unlike 'cis-gendered' versus 'trans-gendered', there's a true dichotomy between 'theist' and 'atheist', but atheism itself means nothing more than not being part of the theism camp. To understand why the label is annoying, you'd have to consider what it would be like to be labelled an atoothfairyist, as though toothfairyism had an intellectually valid leg to stand on and those who deny it are freaks. There's a further annoyance within atheism itself between the terms 'strong atheist' versus 'weak atheist'. The prior is used to describe someone who's absolutely, 100% certain that there are no deities, while the latter is either uncertain or unconcerned. However, there's an implication here that the 'weak atheist' is less likely or less capable of acknowledging or defending their lack of belief when the contrary may be and is often true. What exactly is a weak lack of belief if not a partial belief?
When so-called 'pro-lifers' were pointed out the hypocracy of their self-labelling, in the light that many of them were also in favor of the death penalty (hence they couldn't call their opposition 'pro-death'), a handful of them graciously accepted their being relabelled as 'anti-abortion', but apparently under the hidden condition that their opposition be relabelled from 'pro-choice' to 'pro-abortion'. I don't think they quite understand how relabelling works. Until they've pointed out the hypocracy of the 'pro-choice' stance, they aren't given free reign to imply that we either enjoy abortions or would prioritize it as the first option whenever possible.
From what I can tell, counter-labels that are offensive (whether deliberately or not) usually won't stick unless they're technically true. I doubt the term 'cis-gendered' will last, and certainly hope it won't.
I wouldn't call this phenomenon 'binary thinking', though. All too often I'll come across those who frequently make false dichotomies that tend also to deny the correlatives. It seems the problem doesn't stem so much from black-and-white thinking as it does from not thinking logically. Although I doubt I've cured you of your bafflement to their thinking, and I agree that it's baffling, I hope I've at least made it a little less baffling.
-Quip