Opposite of trans with respect to gender / WED 4-12-17 / Black Tuesday event / Kate's sitcom housemate / Old sailor

Constructor:Emily Carroll

Relative difficulty:Easy

THEME: SPLIT THE BILL (54A: Go Dutch ... or a hint to 20-, 28, 37- and 44-Across)—Circled squares on either end of themers contain names of famous "Bills"

Theme answers:

• GUESSTIMATES (20A: Ballpark figures)
• HOME INVADER (28A: Unwanted guest)
• WALL STREET CRASH (37A: Black Tuesday event)
• MARX BROTHER (44A: Any one of the stars of "Duck Soup") 

Word of the Day:Cisgender(23A: Opposite of trans-, with respect to gender) —

Cisgender (often abbreviated to simply cis) is a term for people whose gender identity matches the sex that they were assigned at birth. Cisgender may also be defined as those who have "a gender identity or perform a gender role society considers appropriate for one's sex". It is the opposite of the term transgender. (wikipedia)

Never was much for these "split" themes. It's a step up from the non-consecutive circled square-type theme, but only a small step. You break a word and push its two parts to the ends of your themer ... voila. It's a pretty common gimmick, though the revealer here gives this one its own cute little twist. The theme is very loose. Very. There are so many Bills, and these Bills don't have anything in common besides being reasonably-to-very-well known. The set is fairly arbitrary. No Nye or Cosby or Clinton or Bixby or Blass or Pullman etc. Bill Walsh was the coach of the 49ers in the 80s, in case you wondering who the hell that is (lookin' at you, non-sports people). Hader was on SNL for a long time. Maher has the talk show, though honestly, after seeing MAHER embedded there, I was like "Oh, right ... one of those skiing brothers from the '80s. I remember them. His brother was Phil..." (turns out it's Phil and *Steve" ... and they spell their name MAHRE). Bill Gates, I assume you know.


Fill was pretty average, with a few nice moments (DYNAMITE! LIVE TV! HOT FOR!). There's probably too much stale stuff (e.g. ALEE ALERO ALITO ANTED ADEAR AEREO and a whole hunk more). Not a big fan of the written-out ampersand—ATANDT just looks stupid. The EPA is no longer "concerned with ecology"—try to keep the clues current. I whipped through this, with slow-downs coming only at 5D: Cayman and Cayenne (PORSCHES) (I wanted PEPPERS ...) and then WALL STREET CRASH (I wanted Black Tuesday to be some kind of sales event—a la "Black Friday"). -PLEX is a terrible suffix and terrible suffixes should not get winky "?" clues, as such clues lead to the opposite of endearment (34D: Movie trailer?). The SE corner is filled very cleanly. It's really a model for how to handle short-fill corners. Perfectly familiar words/names, all cluable in multiple interesting ways (well, except ALLIE—you're kind of limited there, clue-wise). One abbr., but ... that WACronym doesn't bother me a bit. Anyway, I notice when throwaway corners are not treated like throwaway corners. Wish I saw that level of polish more often.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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