Please help me navigate the first stages of dating, with a conflict on trans issues (I'm a guy...)

Anyway, I came here for advice, and I would still really appreciate any further thoughts now that there is a bit more context.

Sounds like immensely hard work, why bother. Find someone more sensible.

Name changed for obvious reasons.

Relevant background:

I’m male, divorced, and recently back on the dating scene after a relationship ended about three months ago.

I’m gender critical / sex realist and politically engaged (specifically on this issue, quite engaged). I care a lot about politics, debate and ideas. I also have strong ADHD and light autistic traits, which means I can be quite intense, direct, and I know I don’t always find grey areas easy.

So, I matched with a woman on a dating app recently. There was a very strong connection straight away. We had a long conversation the night we matched, then met the next day despite some distance between us. The date went very well, with real chemistry and intimacy.

Let’s call her Lady X.

There are some practical location issues, but nothing I would necessarily see as impossible if things developed.

The connection felt unusually strong, although I know it is very early days. We seem to have similar neurodivergent traits, and there was that sense of recognising something in each other which can be quite rare.

On my Tinder profile I had said I was genuinely interested in politics. She asked whether I was right wing or a Tory / Reform voter. I said I don’t really fit neatly into party labels, and that I’m more of an issues-based voter than someone tribal about one party.

Then this came up.

While chatting on messages, she mentioned she used to have an anonymous X account where she saw herself as being an ally to people getting abuse, mainly trans people. When I asked a bit more, it turned out this was around the time J.K. Rowling published her letter. Lady X said she had been pushing back against misinformation, scaremongering and bullying. When I asked more, she sent me a link to Mermaids’ response to J.K. Rowling.

I pushed back a little and said I think there are serious issues with Mermaids and that I wouldn’t automatically trust their framing.

This has left me unsure what to do.

I think this could potentially have legs. I also know I am not always easy to be in a relationship with. Partly that is because of how I see the world, partly because of ADHD/autism, although I am happy being who I am. It can just make relationships harder. So the idea of being with someone who genuinely “gets” some of that is very appealing. It could be brilliant. Or it could be a disaster.

I also know that people with our kind of brains can sometimes become very black and white about the world. I have had to work hard on this myself. Years ago, for example, I found it extremely difficult living in a world where people eat meat, because veganism felt so morally obvious to me. I have had to learn, slowly, to sit with ambiguity and difference. I still find it hard.

I am much better sitting with grey areas and ambiguity than I was in the past.

The issue is that I really don’t believe humans can change sex. I think sex matters in some contexts, and I see this as a serious feminist issue. I am struggling to work out whether this is something we could navigate.

Do we just avoid the subject? That seems unlikely to work, especially for me.

Do we have a proper discussion and see whether there is any meeting of minds? That could go well, or it could expose a complete incompatibility.

Do I walk away now and save everyone the trouble?

I want to be live-and-let-live. I genuinely want to respect differences of opinion. But when a difference of opinion touches on women’s rights and safeguarding, I find it much harder to treat it as just another political disagreement.

Am I thinking about this the wrong way?

I know this could go in Relationships, but I thought I might get a different steer here.

And yes, I do know this is only one date so far.

Maybe this is really about politics and values more broadly, and I’m focusing on the trans issue because it is currently so salient for me.

I’d really appreciate advice, especially from women here who understand the current debate.

Please be kind. I know I may be overthinking it.

First in response to the OP: Be up front. Don't play word games or hint at ideology. Either you two will be able to meet somewhere in the middle or not. Planning exposure of your beliefs to her to gauge a reaction over a period of time is abusive.

How can it be misogynistic violence if it is against men pretending to
be women? They are men. Pretending to be something you will NEVER be

It is misogynistic violence. Pretending trans women are men doesn't alter trans women's experiences.

Decades ago, I had a very good friend that I met on an internet forum. It turns out she was from my home town and lived not too far from where I grew up. She was a lesbian, slightly older than me, and was involved culturally within lesbian communities across North America.

When we met, she was very 'critical' of trans people. We spent a lot of time together over a few years. She witnessed 100s of tiny and not so tiny sexist aggressions that happened, regardless of how we were dressed (and for what it’s worth, neither of us were wearing makeup and both of us were usually in t-shirts and jeans/slacks or shorts).

She told me her views changed somewhat as we spent time together. It was hard for her to ignore the major examples. My being flashed by a man at a park. A man calling us ‘dykes’ when I told a bloke I was uninterested. Having to spend 10 minutes telling a man ‘no’ in a dozen different ways at a restaurant patio while we were eating lunch... just a few.

Just because your ideology refuses to acknowledge the social reality of trans people doesn't mean you can magically change how the world treats trans people (and more specifically, how men treat some trans women).

I don't identify as trans. I live. I've lived my life. I don't impose views. I am not telling anyone how to live their life or possess the power to control anyone's access to rights.

I went through a sex change process that had a beginning and an ending. Sex realists call this a 'trans identity' that sticks to a person for life. I don't control what they believe. I will play along with this on mumsnet, for the sake of conversation though.