Friend shocks me by suddenly saying he's female. How to handle this?

It is interesting when it happens to a man you’ve known for a while. Many people seem to have this idea of “a woman trapped in a man’s body”. I imagine they think such a person would stand out but I think many might reassess if it happened to someone that just came across as an average man to them.

having them being single sex offers no protection anyway

Seriously?!

How do you reconcile the 160% additional punch power of males and their committing 98%+ of sexual assaults with the argument that single sex spaces offer "no" protection? How can anyone say this, in all seriousness?

Are women going to be proportionately more, or less, safe in a small, enclosed space which is open, or closed, to a demographic which is one hundredfold stronger and more sexually aggressive?

Why do so many charities campaign for single-sex toilet access in developing countries? Are you saying that we're more civilised over here? That "our" men are less likely to take advantage of mixed sex, enclosed spaces?! (I really hope not).

This is what I mean by my post above. It's hard to believe someone's arguing in good faith when they make claims like this that are just a blanket denial of overwhelming evidence.

Talk to us about the evidence!

I don't think anyone truly believes that mixed sex prisons are appropriate.

But if they want to give 'Woman of the Year' award to a man, they have to pretend that they think mixed sex prisons are a good idea.

You can't have one without the other without looking like a huge hypocrite.

@MiffedatMP

I've been thinking about your situation in the context of conversations I've had over the years, some with gay men, some with (much younger) trans-identifying males. IMO there is a level of need? aggression? when it comes to sex that I see as very male. A level of determination to have what they want and not think about the impact of it on other people, other than eg in one case I can think of, to feel guilty years later, when it was too late; and in another case to laugh about how the girl would have felt when she found out her boyfriend decided he was trans.

And then I thought of Maeve Halligan and the lesbian girl who stood up at the Cambridge Union and said the most obvious, sensible, realistic and thoughtful things and the people around them still didn't seem to be able to hear or understand what they were saying.

I think what I'm trying to say is don't underestimate the drive of your friend if he becomes subsumed by this new identity of his, or the refusal or inability of your other friends/business colleagues to look at any fallout with accuracy. I would be concerned that you might get yourself into a situation that destroys what you have already – friendships, professional status – and not gain anything.

It’s certainly quite possible.

Not RTFT sorry but OP just don’t work with him. Bin the project as gradually/subtly or as blatantly as you like. You don’t owe him anything.

Exactly. She can pontificate about what she thinks is ok to her heart’s content, it doesn’t change that other women feel differently. As she acknowledged, at first.

Oh yes. Or, as if in my ex, he senses a vulnerability he can exploit. My ex took advantage of me as I was in a dark place and used me as a validation tool. I’d say step back, breathe and make any decisions on whether to keep the friendship from a place of reflection. It’s better to be more cynical and relax boundaries slowly than jump in and find yourself floundering.

Is this better?

Lots of women find it insulting and dehumanising to be expected to pretend a man has become a woman.

It doesn’t matter whether you personally can see why, what matters is that is how we feel.

I've said this earlier . But it's got lost in the Labyrinthine arguments . I think this fella fancies his chances with lesbian OP if he too becomes a lesbian

I have never been able to understand how the existence of trans women could possibly "invalidate" my existence as a woman. Nor how it might infringe on my rights.

There's just been a Supreme Court judgement in the UK that clarified women's rights to single-sex spaces and a word of their own. A parallel case in Oz is likely to go all the way to the top of their justice system. The news is full of reports about women impacted by this issue. Opinion and commentary attest to some public anxiety about this.

In that context, do you know what I don't understand? Why so many replies along the lines of your own, above, seem unable to acknowledge and address these realities.

I was thinking about what you could have posted, from your perspective. What I'd write, if I were arguing your point of view, would be something like:

"I acknowledge that a minority of women are sufficiently concerned about this to have taken the issue to court. However, I don't see this as evidence of women's rights being affected because..." Or how about: "I recognise that there have been issues in which individual women's rights have been affected, but I don't give these particular weight, as..."

My post might then go on to analyse why this evidence of at least some impact on women's rights isn't sufficient to convince me that there's a wider issue. It might then explore different interpretations of the concept of "invalidation", to emphasise why, in my view, the necessity of a court case to establish what women actually are in law doesn't fit this definition.

Why do we, instead of honest acknowledgement of what evidence there is, and careful exploration of the issue, instead just get blanket denial and hyperbole? Emphatic generalisations like, "Never... the existence... my existence... cannot fathom"?

The only explanation I've ever been able to come up with is that the evidence for there being an issue is just too strong to convincingly counter. That the poster in question is running scared.

Acknowledging incontrovertible facts and details, and engaging with associated arguments, can help one to understand other perspectives better. You could do this to test your beliefs that this is a "culture war", and that posters like me are (you intimate above) unthinking puppets manipulated by "the powers that be". Maybe doing so would strengthen your convictions. Maybe it would change your mind! Whichever, though, it would certainly lead to deeper understanding - and more respect from posters here.

As it is, all I can see is myself and other posters diving headfirst into the nuances of a complex issue, exploring it in detail, often acknowledging alternative perspectives...

...And, in response to all this, being told we're "distracted [by] the powers that be [from things of more significance]" - that we are, in as many words, not thinking things through carefully enough.

And this we're told by posters who seem unable to face up even to existence of any opposing evidence and arguments (let alone to convince us of their supposed lack of significance).

There's an irony here.

Great post @Theeyeballsinthesky

Like many “but why do you carrrree” posters on Mumsnet in fact. With their fringe views that men should be able to use women’s spaces just because they claim they are women.

lol you cannot be this dense

if the definition of women also includes "and some men" then how do we for example commission the right number of maternity services for a local area? What we should be able to do is look at the census data and say 'right in this area there are x number of women of child bearing age, y % of them are likely to have children, therefore we need to commission z number of maternity services"

men are not women
apples are not oranges painted green
rabbits are not cats with big ears attached

bit you know all this, you just think men's feelings are more important than women's

How would you treat a male as a woman? What does that mean to you?

So hold on, if they are not rights, then neither is the right to use opposite sex spaces. So by denying transpeople the use of the facilities of their choice, they’re not losing any rights either. And I am including men in that. Men deserve the right to single sex spaces too. If woman is defined as “adult human female”, then that would automatically exclude TIM right? And you’re saying women should be able to do that? Awesome. So now we’ve got all TIM being excluded from all women’s spaces as they are not women and all TIF being excluded from all male spaces as they are not men.

Because…

Men are not women.

Women want and require their own spaces and the law agrees.
Some people need to face reality and no amount of providing facts and logic to them, they’ll never understand.

That women can’t have single sex spaces when they need them because there are men in them? Violating their privacy and dignity, subjecting them to harassment just by being a man when women expect to be in a women’s space because they are vulnerable. Putting them statistically at more risk. It’s not particularly hard to grasp for anyone with any empathy for (other) women and girls.

I'm happy for them to be treated as women. There are a very small handful of ways in which biological sex matters, and I'm pragmatic about that. Irrelevant to whether my co-worker wants to be called 'she', that's all.

Legally transmen cannot use mens single sex spaces so transwomen not being able to use womens single sex spaces is equality.

What is rigid about the definition of a woman being an adult human female?

We are women. Men are not women.

What problem?

How are those rights? If trans men are using men's spaces, it's not unequal. And how does any of this affect how we define ourselves? We are women and nobody can take that from us. Conversely, being too rigid in our definition could harm women who don't come across as feminine enough. It's a slippery slope.

It is a problem, so no.

You’ve been given many. As i said, you either aren’t listening, or you’re avoiding them. Which isn’t particularly reasonable engagement, is it.