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I can't see that it does really. A word for water doesn't destroy the society of fish or Atlanteans. It describes their reality. You could create the word and then say, this is the word for what is normal and correct and good so lets not change anything. Or you could create the word and say this is the word for the status quo and that is not good and needs to be changed. But the word itself isn't doing the changing. How it is used (or how the concept is used really, because the word could be blargle for all that it matters).
In fact, I'd suggest the evidence shows the opposite, people were working to tear down what was "normal" BEFORE the word in question was created. Gay rights movements were campaigning to normalize gay people and spread well before cisgender and heteronormativity were coined (the 90's from what I can see). Showing the words are not necessary for people to try and change the status quo. The words come second. The awareness comes first. For what we observe in reality that must be the case. The existence of the word does not destroy "normality". The existence of people who challenge the concept might but that predates the creation of the word.
It might be true that creating the words make it easier to describe and campaign for perhaps, but they clearly aren't necessary.
Hmm. How about this:
Someone once said that every genius needs a translator. A mind that thinks of new ideas often has a perspective too different from ordinary people to be able to communicate that idea to them.
Returning to cisheteronormativity (which is even worse when typing on a phone), it is not the case that somebody was idly musing and accidentally summoned Cthulhu into being.
The word’s creators were not normal people. They were mostly gay activists and Marxists who for various reasons wished to tear down both the concept and the existence of normality.
Their particular position allowed them to conceive of the word ‘ cisheteronormativity’ because they were already living the opposite of it, but that word remains an infohazard. Even hearing it summons a conceptual shadow into peoples’ heads because cis and hetero (and normal) are words with known opposites. To hear cis is to understand that transness exists, to hear hetero is to know that homoness exists. You don’t even necessarily know what they mean yet, but now you ‘understand’ that they do exist and you want to find out more. You also need to find out more, because the word is fashionable and you want to be able to use it. The construction also suggests expertise and knowledge because of the way we treat Greek roots, of course.
It’s as if we started talking about homo-morphic societies. It instantly summons a concept of heteromorphic societies, waiting to be filled.
In short, peoples’ complaint is broadly that academia has being creating, popularising and lending authority to infohazards. Granting that there is some chicken-and-eggness, it remains an escalating cycle. And I do not believe that the people who invented ‘to problematise’ as a verb are doing this on accident.
You could YesChad and say you approve of cisheteronormativity but you now have to fight about it, and that battle will be fought on the plain of words and definitions and identities, where everything is slippery and nothing is ultimately defensible.
Think of the famous dialogue from Life of Brian:
In the real world, men cannot have babies. But in the free-floating world of words and dignity, men can have the right to have babies, and good luck suggesting otherwise. Once you concede this argument, you will find it unacceptable to point out that men in real life can’t have babies because you are now infringing their commonly accepted rights.
In this way academia has been midwife, facilitator and enforcer of vast and IMO largely negative trends in our society, and is attracting opprobrium accordingly.
I think this is the heart of the argument. If I show you a man buggering another man, you don't need a word for it to know that it exists. Similarly if I show you a man dressed up as a woman. You already know it exists. Then you create a word for it. That word does make it easier for you to communicate what you mean. "My neighbor is gay" is easier to say than "My neighbor fucks men" (barely) but you know the concept exists even if you lack special words to describe it. The shadow as you put it is already there, it predates the words. Men have been fucking other men (and boys) going back pretty much as far as we have recorded history. You're going to find out homoness exists whether there is a word for it or not.
We could replace the word (and yes I agree it's a pain to type) cisheteronormativity with menaremenandwomenarewomenandmenfuckwomenandthatisnormal and the only thing that would change is that it's maybe marginally even more of a pain to type than cisheteronormativity. You can indeed just say that cishetero is normal and gesture to every other mammal. There is nothing to stop you doing that. You don't have to defend it academically is basically my point.
You can just say "Clearly gay people do exist but it is normal for men to fuck women." an academic may respond with a torrent of words and the like, but normal people don't understand them and don't like them. You DON'T have to engage at their level to win in the public eye. People aren't persuaded by rational academic arguments. This is what Trump proves every single day. Academia can pound on about cisheteronormativity and Trump can just say "Men aren't women" and the majority of Americans will agree with him.
The infohazard of being gay exists. You can't hide it. The word gay is not the infohazard itself. It just describes it. You can use that to point people to the infohazard or away from it (Gay is good!, Gay is bad!) but having a word for it in and of itself is not the problem. If the infohazard is bad then it is the act of pointing people towards it that is the problem, not the word you use while doing so.
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