"Cissexual" is a term popularized by a known transfeminist writer Julia Serano. In her terminology glossary, she defines it as the opposite of "transsexual", and "transsexual" as the following (highlight mine):
a person who identifies and/or lives as a member of the sex other than the one they were assigned at birth. (...) For these reasons, I favor definitions based on self-identity (i.e., whether one identifies as female or male) and/or lived sex (i.e., whether one currently navigates their way through the world as a woman or man) -- this conceptualization would be inclusive of pre-transition transsexuals (who are not yet living as a member of the gender they identify as), as well non-binary transsexuals (who navigate their way through the world as members of the sex other than the one they are assigned a birth, even if they do not fully embrace the identity of “woman” or “man”).
One curious implication of this definition is that people who both identify as a nonbinary gender and pursue social transitions that would place them outside of the binary categorically cannot be transsexual.
The word itself appears to have been coined in German by a German sexologist Volkmar Sigusch in a meaning identical to "cisgender" (as "individuals where physical gender and gender identity are completely and 'naturally' co-extensive"). This meaning is the one you're most likely to receive if you simply google the term.
Wiktionary also cites Sigusch and also pins the year of coinage at 1991.
The Wikipedia page on "cisgender" lists "cissexual" as a synonym.
In contrast to that, the trans community bounced off the definition suggested by Julia Serano and some define "cissexual" as a person not transitioning medically.
There exists an opinion that there are "cissexual" transgender people within the trans community, and that they enforce their values and goals onto "true" transsexuals.
Here are my arguments why the transsexual/cissexual distinction, and the entire concept of "cissexual", is harmful and unnecessary.
The question of privilege
Most users of the "cissexual" terminology present it as a given that "cissexual" transgender people have a similar social position and class interests with cis people. However, this is not explored other than as a hypothetical, and reality contradicts it.
For instance, while nonbinary people are both less likely to desire hrt and more likely to be denied it (page 99), they are also highly likely to face violence and discrimination and negative health outcomes. Evidence suggests that simply disclosing pronouns that imply nonbinariness, in absence of any medical information, leads to discrimination.
Another study suggests that, while gender conforming* trans people are more likely to experience discrimination the further they are in medical transition, gender-nonconforming** ones experience more severe discrimination if they do not transition medically.
If there is any conclusion to be made here, it is that trans people of any medical transition status are still regarded as deviant by the cis society and face similar hardships.
*defined here as being less visibly trans
**defined here as more visibly trans
People end up not pursuing medical transition for various reasons. While many users of "cissexual" terminology claim they accept those who don't transition medically for reasons outside of their will, it is not a distinction you can draw at a glance. Nobody is obliged to provide you their medical, financial, or family history just so you can evaluate whether their reasons to not medically transition are valid enough.
The trans community itself does not have a clear definition of what counts as medical transition. I have encountered opinions that undergoing only "partial" medical transition, without bottom surgery, is enough to disqualify you from being transsexual. While most defenders of "cissexual" would laugh at this (I hope), there are still many lesser known transition pathways, like getting facial feminization surgery and body hair removal, or radical breast reduction and hip liposuction. The answer to where lies the line between "true" transition and "cissexual" plastic surgery will depend on the speaker's opinions about basically everything else regarding gender. That is not a useful discourse to have, from the point of view of securing our rights to medical transition.
Conflation with cisgender
The way this word is used in practice, it invites a deliberate conflation with "cisgender". Its defenders might say "no, I am not calling you cisgender, this is not about your gender", but still act like "cissexuals" occupy a material position of cis privilege in practice (see the point about privilege above) and shift the goalposts of discourse.
Serano herself admitted to see more meaning in the cissexual/transsexual division than in cisgender/transgender:
While the word “cissexual” is used throughout Whipping Girl (according to Google Books, it appears on a whopping seventy-six pages, and often multiple times per page), the word “cisgender” only appears six times in the entire text. (...) So why did I focus almost entirely on cissexual privilege and cissexism while largely ignoring cisgender privilege and cisgenderism? As I’ve already discussed, the main reason is that I felt that transsexual-specific issues had not been adequately addressed by the transgender movement.
This is a part of a broader attempt to decenter the question of the internal self and its expression from transgender politics.
The previous sentence logically leads us towards how the writers and bloggers on that side of discourse understand their goals and goals of the "cissexuals". Here is an extract from the essay I linked at the end of the intro:
This insistent need to consider all identities, including the ones “truscum” transsexuals criticize as saturating the actual material needs of transsexuals, as “valid,” is a genuine threat to us with specific and unique transsexual interests as an intersectionally oppressed group of gender variant people.
Another essay that I believe fits this topic, despite not using the word "cissexual" itself and replacing the cissexual/transsexual dichotomy with a transgender/transsexual one, where "transgender" takes the role of the vilified medically nontransitioning invader:
Transgender partisans, meanwhile, elevated a deliberate incongruence between physical sex and gendered personality as more sophisticated than transitioning from one sex to another and living unmolested for it. Over time, the position has stretched into several of the core transgender claims that conservative justices took advantage of in Skrmetti: that one need not experience dysphoria or even try to change sex to be transgender; that transgender identity involves endless and shifting personal identification, making it impossible to define; or that everyone might be, in fact, a bit transgender because anyone can adopt an androgynous style or challenge stereotypes about women and men.
The paragon of transgender liberalism is the rejection of transition as what distinguishes transgender people from the rest of the population. Instead of political liberation taking the form of redistributing the means of transitioning sex, liberation would now be from gender as such—a proposition so abstract that it appeals to people who don’t transition, are afraid to, or who try to cope with how difficult it is by recasting their suffering as noble.
The question we're dealing with is whether our community, by whatever name you call it, should be preoccupied with protecting the right to medically transition or the right to self-describe and have your word respected.
Moreover, I believe we cannot be liberated from the social norms that regulate our bodies without being liberated from the ones that regulate our minds. The people, or institutions, that don't trust you to know yourself will also not trust you to know your body. There is an ongoing tradition in anti queer legislation to outlaw both gender transition and promotion of transgender identity at the same time. It is essential that we criticize anti transition bias in trans spaces (when there is one - and not just people mistaking "you don't have to transition medically" as transition discouragement) without criticizing importance of the transgender identity as a standalone value.
Moreover, I can't help feeling like the cissexual/transsexual dichotomy is a product of a culturally US American social discourse, where gaining access to HRT has been historically easier, and stereotypes of what a "proper" transition looks like have emerged. The trans community needs to uplift trans people from countries where they have to rely on DIY and legal gender change is not possible, instead of telling scary stories about "cissexuals".
Gender identity freedom and body modification freedom are our shared need.
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