Friend called TW 'man' and 'fella'

My feeling is that you can hold both the idea that gender is nonsense and the idea that people should be allowed to live their lives as they wish in your head at the same time. So if a male person is claiming to need a gynecologist and using up an appointment you could have had, by all means complain. If they're just wearing a dress and serving you a big Mac surely they can just get on with it without causing you any difficulty. You don't have to approach them by their sex or their gender do you.

In my local Post Office (scruffy part of South London) I once heard an old geezer thank the (much younger, male) assistant with a cheery "ta, dahlin!" It was friendly and natural.

If you'd gone to a drive through in the West Country, your friend could have greeted the bloke in make up with an "all right, moi luvver?"

So why did it make me so uncomfortable that my friends didn't play along, when I always believed I wouldn't either?

Is it's just the years of woman guilt and being told to be 'nice?'

It is, but also possibly some mild resentment that men can do it and get away with it when for women it often is as Empress describes.

If he's spoken the way he's always spoken, using language he's always used, he's done nothing wrong.

Putting on a skirt and blouse does not make you female, in the same way that having short hair and wearing trousers does not make you male.

Perhaps he was a transvestite. They like to be called "he" and are straight men. They used to be everywhere. There was an annual convention for them in Scarborough where hundreds came. I used to work at the hotel and greet them, I wonder where they went? I rarely see them now. Has it gone out of fashion?

It’s pretty apparent why women on Mumsnet are angry. There’s numerous threads about why in the Feminism: Sex and Gender section of the website.

When I was unexpectedly confronted with a TW on a quiet street in Brighton who wanted to know what I thought of his hair, I said what he wanted to hear. It went against my principles but he was twice my size & I didn’t want to get thumped.

I’d hate for us to lose regional variation in dialects because everyone is scared of a telling off from a Gender Studies student (we just seem to end up with imported Americanisms instead, and I’m a conscientious objector to American Cultural Imperialism).

This. I've had some proper rows with libfems insisting that any use of flower/petal/chuck/dear is the deliberate misogyny, even when it goes both directions.

It's just a type of snobbery that regards anything working class as wrong.

Good for that man! Stop playing along with shite. That weakness has led us to where we are now, with people thinking they are a gendered soul that has floated about and entered the "wrong body", and having horrific body mutilations to make the body a pathetic imitation of the other biological sex. It's weakness that has caused all this crap. People need to stop playing along and being so fucking weak.

Probably so but, personally, I would not assume someone wanted me to pretend something silly unless they asked me to. All those things are nothing to do with being a woman, per se.

In principle, I think it's great if men want to wear makeup. The problem is the loons who want to force others to lie about their sex.

Might not be particularly gendered*, could be regional and OP was just more sensitive to it in this particular situation than she ordinarily would be?

In my area everyone under the age of about 50 is wont to randomly call each other ‘mate’ (including my female friends to each other) it indicates friendliness, much like ‘love’ but in a manner that negates the fear of one’s friendliness being mistaken for flirting.
You even have mate in your username!

*if it is being used in a specifically gendered then it’s likely less about being directly sexist and more about how men interact with each other in a manner that placates male anger - although perhaps not if the ‘mate/fella/man’ is the sort who demands others take play along with their performed fiction 🙀

Personally, I think this sort of language is just habitual/reflexive and based on local patterns. It’s no more sexist than an older lady calling a young chap ‘cock’ and a younger woman ‘love’ (although the unisex ‘duck’ is probably safest in 2023).

I’d hate for us to lose regional variation in dialects because everyone is scared of a telling off from a Gender Studies student (we just seem to end up with imported Americanisms instead, and I’m a conscientious objector to American Cultural Imperialism).

OP, it’s probably your ‘Inner Beryl’ making you feel like that (back with the link when I’ve searched it up!)

In Lancashire it's pretty common amongst working class men. It's a cultural thing.

While I also do not believe for a moment that person was a man I don’t see the need to constantly refer to their sex, it was pretty rude.
I will not ever #bekind to the extent of supporting men in female only spaces but I would also not keep using very sex specific terms to anyone like this driver did.
I wouldn’t have used female terms either though

@Zombaes what makes you think the middle aged man in makeup wanted your friend to pretend he was a woman?

If you meet a woman with short hair and trousers do you assume she wants you to pretend she's a man.

If your friend normally speaks to men in that way and wasn't being mean I can't see a problem.

I have come to the conclusion that the word to use is "guy/guys" because I am constantly told - despite my protestations to the contrary - that "guy" is a gender neutral term.

This. It's weird. Which words would he use to greet a woman?
It's really not necessary to refer to gender at all during short conversations like this.

I presume you wouldn't normally use sex-specific terms of address when dealing with people in passing? So, I wouldn't behave any differently with someone who presented as if they were trans at a drive through. I would if I they were in a female single sex environment though.

Do you think your friend used those sex-based terms specifically to be clear that he wasn't going along with the idea that this man was actually a woman? Or was he just reacting to someone he recognised as male the way he would usually?

Another way to look at it: unless there's more to the story, you are the one making assumptions about how this person wanted to be addressed. For all you know, this was a man who felt like wearing makeup (and whatever else made you assume TW) but did not wish to be seen as female. I think that possibility is worth fighting for, mostly for the sake of all the women who'd like to be able to have short hair and no makeup without people making assumptions that they're transmen/NB.

I think you feel uncomfortable because there's a big difference between not buying into using female pronouns for a TW, and going out of your way to use very clearly male terms such as 'fella'. I'm guessing you yourself would have just avoided using gender-specific terms when using a drive-thru, which should be easily done.

That said it sounds like your friend is just a friendly person, and perhaps even used those friendly terms in a subconscious attempt to make it clear he has no issue with men wearing women's clothes and make up. However I suppose it could have had the opposite effect.

Can you expand on your "angry feelings"? I see a lot of similar sentiment on here and i genuinely dont understand it