Advice please: Dreading TRA friend's visit

Why? It's not referring to same sex attracted people, but to everything to the right of the LGB.

@BetsyBobbin Does your husband know about your views and hers?

Anyone who thinks lesbians can have / should engage with penises is homophobic.

And ‘alphabet soup’ is a perfectly valid description for the long list of initials which bundle sexuality in with gender identity and whatever queer & the plus are. My rule of thumb is that the longer the acronym, the less it has to do with LGB rights.

I'm gender critical but "blue haired alphabet soup" is just downright homophobic.

I wouldn't bring the subject up myself but if she did I might say something about it being important that children are allowed to grow up before making irreversible decisions and that the Cass review seemed important. Or that you understand different identities but boys winning girls competitions didn't seem fair.

Then, but it's complex so let's not spend your short time here on controversial issues.

Just enough to show lack of compliance but not enough to ruin the atmosphere.

Or is that naive?

@BetsyBobbin your OP has me wondering if our husbands share the same old friend!!
The last time we saw her (invited to dinner while we were visiting town she lives in) she raised the topic, I played dumb and asked questions and she was stumped by the prison question.
She twigged pretty quickly that I was only playing dumb, and I felt bad for not respecting her as a host and keeping my mouth shut, but I'm now very glad I won't be invited to catch up with her when we're visiting the area - she's very posh and I've always found her difficult.

I'm sad at the depth of shame at her femaleness that evidently informs her position (e.g. "ugh, who'd want to be defined by having breasts and all"), but I don't miss having to make small talk with someone I never liked very much.

I’d go along for one short evening out then have a terrible migraine for the rest of her visit because she sounds annoying.

I agree the nod and smile is galling but when I'm not quick thinking enough in the moment it's that or going full on terf and sometimes it isn't the right moment or I will come off as nuts because I've been holding back. I try and be more strategic with it and only go into it over arguments that are fairly mainstream (sports, children, prisons) as you have the weight of more obvious reason and popular opinion behind you and can avoid going into nuance which is more likely to get heated. What can they even say to 'i don't think rapists should be in woman's prisons' that doesn't make them seem naive/blind.

I aspire to have a casual 'oh I disagree' type answer to everything and then that leaves it open to anyone to start the debate by asking why. They can do the work to avoid conflict too.

Avoid the friend at all costs. I wouldn't want to spend time with someone like this.

This is a sensible approach.

Yet somehow my nieces take was that the fault lay with prisons not being safe enough for everyone .
Best to go down the polite refusal to engage or change the subject rapidly and randomly if she brings it up.

Is she really the type of person who would shoehorn this topic into the average conversation? My wife has just completed a Master's programme in an ideologically captured university, with teachers who have written books on queer theory. Even then, the topic of gender identity came up much less often than she expected/worried about.

Come up with a stock phrase you could use if it does happen, like "this has been all over the news lately, hasn't it? A big topic that is quite contentious, I'd rather not get into it today" and do your best to refuse to engage.

Where's your partner in all this, BTW?

I would be tempted to say “I have a completely different point of view to you, but I want us to have a nice time together, so shall we avoid discussing anything political while you are here so we can just enjoy ourselves? Let’s prioritise getting along”.

I find I can’t do the nod and smile thing unfortunately. I feel degraded to be assumed to agree with horrifying ideas.

I would avoid the subject altogether. Keep conversation light. No point in getting into a row.

I have closed a conversation down with firm I'm sorry but I cannot agree with biological men being placed in a women's prison with vulnerable women."

Its a difficult one for even TRAs to argue, as Sturgeon discovered.

I’ve got a friend like this. I try to keep the peace so, for example, if she mentions toilets I do something like agree with her that trans/NB should feel safe in toilets but extend it to all people. If she then goes TWAW, I nod sympathetically and point out that many women want to maintain the single sex provision in the Equality Act for a variety of reasons, eg if their religion requires it. This usually stops them or they then move to ‘having a separate space for people like them’ whereupon I nod and agree and say that a unisex toilet in addition to single sex spaces is a great idea.

Of course, that’s not what they meant but they can’t argue with that, and careful guiding of the conversation can mean we ‘agree’ on a number of things. I never directly say that TWANW but I politely and carefully make sure I don’t compromise my beliefs while giving the impression that my friend must agree with these things too. Toilets are example, rape centres another. For that, I lead her to agree that a single sex plus unisex option were best. She didn’t start off by saying that but I pretended she agreed by leading her along a similar path as above.

This is what I would say something like this. Followed up with "we will have to agree to disagree" every time they try convert/cause an argument. Then I do think I would leave and make it be known I was driven off by them not dropping the topic and being aggressive/argumentative/insulting (if they indeed had been)

Why not be totally frank (only if the subject comes up) and tell her how you feel and why, and leave her and allies to explain how a man is a woman and why everyone should pretend they have a gendered soul?
Explain to your husband beforehand the situation, remain calm throughout and leave the emotional explaining to them.
Keep it light, simple and innocent, and dont back down, just keep coming at them with questions and facts.

I would wear my dinosaur necklace

Ugg. My sister is a bit like this. She keeps making pointed remarks (I think she's deliberately testing me) and because we generally get together as part of family events I'm very reluctant to start anything and cause an argument because that's what will happen she's suuuper deep. Especially annoying as she's simultaneously gone 'feminist' buying 'crush the patriarchy' t shirts and attending marches, i struggle not to point out the dissonance.

I use the nod and smile technique, I conveniently get distracted by my kids, my dinner, needing to check the oven. I have brought up a few things on the edges sometimes. She was moaning about how awful it is that trans women can't be the mother on the birth certificate once. I gently told her, birth certificates belong to the child and shouldn't be validation for a parents Identity. Mother has a legal definition etc etc.
I think this was the first time she clocked I've gone over to the dark side.

I was most gratified when she started showing how 'right on' she was when my 20years younger little brother visited from abroad with his boyfriend. She was clearly expecting a receptive audience but he gently put her right and (being only 20 and gay) said he was of the generation vulnerable to all this, spoke about safeguarding, how some friends has been effected by this because of social media particularly. That then opened the debate for me to agree in a way my middle aged, hetero self couldn't.

They are both massive potter heads too so we were all happily chatting about the game and which wand they would be buying when they went to the shop in London and I could tell she didn't know what to say (she had already mentioned how evil jk was)

I would make some decisions now about the points you are willing to mention if it comes up. Child safeguarding (cass) men in womens sport, rapists in prison etc the areas that are pretty clear cut, and be prepared for their responses. It will be very easy to get deep and argumentative but keep calm and casual and logical and disengage when it gets emotional. Avoid engaging where you can though or this might get ugly. I tend to make it clear I think that it's a homophobic ideology to prove my leftie credentials too.

In light of the Cass Report as a minimum, continuing to adopt a genderist position is contemptible. And given the genderist hostility to those who don’t share their view, perhaps the old playground adage of don’t give it if you can’t take it would be useful.

Avoid her completely. Both of you. Edited, she's not staying with you? No need at all to engage. She'll cause disruption, cult mentality people always do.

You both sound very similar, just have opposing views. Neither of you are going to change each other’s minds. I don’t think every conversation needs to be a heated debate, you sound like you’re spoiling for a fight. I have friends with different political views to me, we don’t discuss politics every second. Just stay home and let the others have a nice time.

If her SM is a walking advert for TWAW rather than her having thought no more deeply about it than “of course we should be kind to this group we’re told are oppressed, apparently it’s just like gay rights” then you’re wasting your time trying to change her mind. She won’t want to hear it, she’ll become defensive and you’ll be the bad guy in everyone else’s eyes - including your husband’s - who “ruined her trip”.

From the vantage of several years of bitter experience, of losing friends I thought were critical thinkers who turned out unable even to agree to disagree on this (and of finding others in dark times and places), I’ve learned that you can plant seeds of doubt in the unthinking it’s-nice-to-be-kind group but never in the BE KIND, BIGOT types.

I'm guessing this thread got transferred to the naughty step overnight?
OP, there will be some excellent advice along shortly.