Cisgender identity — alignment between assigned gender and felt gender — is experienced by many as no identity at all, simply as the unmarked norm against which others are measured. But to examine it is to find that it, too, has been built: shaped by gendered socialization, maintained by norms enforced through approval and punishment, and carrying its own costs that go unnamed because they are so widely shared. The examined cisgender life asks what was accepted that might have been questioned, and what was given up in order to fit.
Each step builds on the last.