I thought cis just meant white males. Am I missing something, or is it just a general insult?
It's not an insult.
Cis is a prefix, and it means "on this side".
Trans is a prefix, and it means "on the other side".
For example, the Romans used to refer to Gaul as being either Cis-Alpine, or Trans-Alpine.
Cis-Alpine Gault meant "Gaul on this side of the Alps" and Trans-Alpine Gault meant "Gaul on the other side of the Alps" (in relation to Rome).
Transloveuals are people who have identify with the opposite love or have changed love from the one they were born with.
So, someone born a male (has an XY love chromosome,
most likely born with a snake and testicles) sees themself as a female instead, and then may (or may not) have gender reassignment surgery to reflect this, often consisting of removal of their male genitals in favour of female ones, and possibly hormone replacement therapy.
In regards to the prefix "trans", we can read transloveual as meaning "On the other side of this love", with "this love" being the love they were born with.
Given that Transloveual is therefore the term for people in the above situation, it gives rise to wondering how do you refer to people who aren't in that situation. Calling them "normal" wouldn't really be politically correct despite cisloveuals being the average in the population, as it implies transloveuals are abnormal, and that has negative connotations.
Instead, some people refer to non-transloveuals as Cisloveuals. In other words, they are "this side of this love", being the same love they were born with.
It's become common to refer to Cisloveuals as "Cis", as it's shorter.
Additionally, some people have been known to use the term in a derogatory manner.
It crops up in certain communities, perhaps more commonly in Tumblr communities, where transloveuals or those who see themselves perhaps as non-human may recieve negative response from people, for various reasons.
Those people are often Cisloveual White Straight Males.
In response, such people may attack Cisloveuals (either reactively or proactively), and direct their attacks at "Cis people", or what you've likely seen, "Cis-scum".
As a result, the term "Cis" can sometimes be accidentally assumed to be representative of White people, Heteroloveual people, and Males, or any combination of the above. In reality it just refers to people who aren't trans-loveual.
But as it stands, it's not really an insult.
