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Tuesday July 15, 2025

Elon Musk detests word 'cis', calls it 'heterophobic' — But is heterophobia real?

“Cis is a heterophobic word. Shame on anyone who uses it,” says Elon Musk

By Web Desk
January 12, 2024
Elon Musk at the Vivatech technology startups and innovation fair at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, on June 16, 2023. — AFP
Elon Musk at the Vivatech technology startups and innovation fair at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, on June 16, 2023. — AFP

Elon Musk, the owner of X, returned to the cisgender engagement pool and scolded people for using the word "cis" calling it a "heterophobic" slur.

In a seemingly spontaneous social media post, Musk fully expressed his detest for the term "cisgender" according to the Washington Times.

“Cis is a heterophobic word. Shame on anyone who uses it,” the billionaire wrote.

Many of Musk's supporters responded to the post in the replies, setting off an inevitable firestorm.

A regular commenter on X concurred with Musk and shared the findings of an X survey indicating that 78% of respondents thought the term "cis" was derogatory. In response, another user created another poll, to which, as of Thursday, 63% of participants agreed that the term "cis" is derogatory.

In response, journalist Victoria Brownworth provided the standard definition of cisgender.

“Cis(gender) describes a person whose gender identity corresponds to their sex assigned at birth,” she wrote. “It is the opposite of trans(gender). It has zero to do with sexual orientation and this is neither ‘heterophobic’ nor homophobic. Please learn how to Google.”