Every person is assigned a gender identity at the time of their birth. However,  some people identify differently from their assigned sex and are included in the term transgender. There are a lot of different terms transgender people use to describe themselves. For example, sometimes the word transgender is shortened to just trans or trans male/trans female. Running parallel to this word is the term cisgender, which means people whose sexual identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth. A cisgender man, for example, is a person assigned male at birth who identifies as a man. That often means a man born with a penis. Meanwhile, a cisgender woman is a person assigned female at birth who identifies as a woman—most are born with a vagina and develop other secondary female sex characteristics in puberty.

The prefix “trans-” comes from Latin, meaning “across from” or “on the other side of”. In contrast, the prefix “cis-” means “on this side of”. The prefixes are used to connotate gender transitioning, and how cisgender people experience the “side” of the gender they’re assigned at birth, while transgender people transition to another gender, or side, than the one given to them after birth. The word cisgender was included in language to make it more fair and inclusive for all people. It is largely used by those who are sensitive to issues of gender and identity. The use of the term cisgender as opposed to transgender is largely seen as the key to acceptance of  equal division of sexual identification of  a person into two categories. By calling cisgender people “cisgender” instead of using a word like “common” or “normal,” creates a neutral niche for both categories to grow comfortably side by side.