Cisgender [sis-jen-der] is a neologism that refers to individuals who are comfortable in the gender they were assigned at birth. It contrasts ‘transgender’ on the gender spectrum. A more popular term is ‘gender normative.’ The word has its origin in the Latin-derived prefix cis, meaning ‘on the same side’. In this case, ‘cis’ refers to the alignment of gender identity with assigned gender.
The word was coined in 1995 by Carl Buijs, a transsexual man from the Netherlands. Buijs said in a usenet posting, ‘As for the origin, I just made it up. I just kept running into the problem of what to call non-trans people in various discussions, and one day it just hit me: non-trans equals cis. Therefore, cisgendered.’
The Daily Omnivore 
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