To just hand over my women's meetup group to a trans member?

[Mallorie]

I run a women-in-[industry] meetup group (it's a traditionally male-dominated industry, but don't want to get more specific than that as this is outing enough as it is). I didn't found the group but took over organisation duties when the founder (a good friend) moved abroad.

It's not closed to men - men have been speakers before, and a handful of men will usually attend to support friends/colleagues or just because the speaker or topic is interesting. However, the point of the group is to offer education and networking opportunities for women in our industry, and to encourage women in adjacent industries or in the early stages of choosing a career to consider joining our industry.

The group has grown by leaps and bounds over the last couple of years so I asked for a volunteer to help me with planning and running the meetups and specifically to help start an annual mini-conference. I see now that my mistake was asking in a public forum rather than approaching a few people personally, because a transgender woman we'll call Alex immediately and rather forcefully volunteered - basically they were like "YES I've got this! I've been waiting for this opportunity, I've got so many great ideas, when can we start?" No one else really volunteered and I didn't feel like I had any choice but to let Alex help. Alex is only recently transitioned and I have known them as a tall, big (rather obnoxious blowhard) male for a few years , Alex looks exactly the same but now wears earrings and patterned blouses. Anyway.

Alex's 'help' started with a bullet-pointed list of all the changes in language we needed to make on the group website and any/all tweets, emails, agendas, and presentations to include all 'self-identifying women and non-binary people', a list of rules for attendees and speakers about inclusive language, and a list of themes for upcoming meetups based around dealing with transgender issues in the workplace. The dates and details of the conference haven't even been discussed yet, but Alex has already written a sort of manifesto about how it's a conference for all self-identifying women and non-binary people. The actual industry education and discussions around the actual work that we do in the industry seems not just secondary now, but completely forgotten - Alex's eyes glaze over when I mention anything concrete, for example the details of an expert in a specific technology who has volunteered to speak at the next meetup.

Alex and a younger contingent of the meetup group are super excited about all of this and have taken over the conversation on social media. No one is saying anything against the new regime, and I don't feel like I can without opening a can of worms that could damage my career - something I can't afford to deal with. So I'm thinking about just handing over the reins to Alex and focusing on my own career.

It breaks my heart because I've made so many good friends in the group, and it has genuinely helped support and improve the working lives of lots of actual women, but the women who I suspect feel the same as me about this new direction are silent - probably like me, they're afraid of the repercussions of speaking out.

I wish I'd never asked for help, and that I'd pushed back with Alex from the start, but I feel like it's too late now.

[Lovelyusername]

how About make it a two day event. One day you organise and one day is all about trans agenda that Alex organises?

Write up your to do list for your one day event with all the jobs listed out and ask your friends to pick up. See if they do. If they don’t you have a useful blueprint anyway.

Send the same list to Alex and let her get on with it. Don’t help her.

At the same time make her inclusion office and ask her to get some racial inclusive events going on too, in fact how about the trans BAME people!? Alex should focus on them!

If you give Alex lots of ring fenced Work she will get bored, fail to do it and look an idiot. It’ll be a busy year but either you lose alex or you keep Alex but she’s done what she’s been asked to do and is an asset.

[ferntwist]

Why should we mis-sex Alex? He’s a man who wears women’s clothing. No surgery, no hormones, no Gender Reassignment Certificate. If you ban us from calling him male, well then you’ve stolen the language we need to talk about this problem of male appropriation of women’s spaces and issues under the transgender banner. Is that the plan?

[purits]

Alex and a younger contingent of the meetup group are super excited about all of this and have taken over the conversation on social media.

I think that you should organise the next meet-up where you explain that you have a temporary but large project that needs your attention. You will have to leave the group, temporarily, but luckily we have Alex & the handmaidens to take over. Get Alex to take the details of those at the meeting to create a new database.
Step away and give Alex time to mess up. You then resume control (or start a new group) down the line and have a good look at membership rules.

[illustrious]

And don't be intimidated by the noisy support for her on social media, that's all fine for people to be supportive, social media is by it's nature 'noisy' - it's easy for people to shout yay or nay on Twitter but another thing to follow through with actual comment. And, in my experience 'younger' colleagues are quick to react to things on Social Media cos it's easy and gets attention but they do f@ck all on follow through or commitment.
One more thing - if Alex is a transwoman then she's 'She' not 'he'...

[DodoPatrol]

You said the aim of your group is:
'to offer education and networking opportunities for women in our industry; and to encourage women in adjacent industries or in the early stages of choosing a career to consider joining our industry.'

Alex can get involved in the first but should step away from the second, given he joined the industry as a bloke and therefore won't know what it is that puts women off joining.

(Alex should also remember that meetings are geared to the 99.9% or so of those who call themselves women, not to the 0.1%.)

[StrangeLookingParasite]

Why does the gender issue matter at all? A new volunteer gets involved in a group and trys to take over and the older members feel like the group is changing...

Yes, because changing the entire focus of the group is trivial. Women's rights don't matter at all.


I mean, the bit where you keep calling Alex "him" isn't a great start.

Mean old reality.
I am done with buying into other people's delusions. Done.

[balsamicbarbara]

"If you ban us from calling him male, well then you’ve stolen the language we need to talk about this problem of male appropriation of women’s spaces"

No. She is male. Male is sex and if she has a penis then you can still call her male. However, she is a trans woman because "woman" is gender not sex.

So change the group to being a female group and not a woman's one if you want to discriminate against trans people.

[titchy]

Barbara - women is sex not gender. Transwomen is gender.

But well done for acknowledging Alex is male.

[PidgeonPodge]

No. She is male. Male is sex and if she has a penis then you can still call her male. However, she is a trans woman because "woman" is gender not sex.

So change the group to being a female group and not a woman's one if you want to discriminate against trans people

What a load of bollocks.

You do realise not a sentence of that makes sense. Femininity can be argued as being a construction of gender, woman is not.

[GlitterUnicornsAndAllThatJazz]

I would fight enthusiasm with enthusiasm:

Act really gushing and enthusiastic about this. Bleat on about how incredible and important this is and how perfect Alex is for the role. In fact, this is all so incredible and important that it deserves its own dedicated events, newsletter column and agenda. You see where im going with this. Ring fence it, give him total control and freedom - separate from your core agenda but making it look like youre giving it a major platform.

[balsamicbarbara]

Sorry but... copy and paste job here from GLAAD..

Sex is "the classification of people as male or female" at birth, based on bodily characteristics such as chromosomes, hormones, internal reproductive organs, and genitalia. Gender identity is "one's internal, personal sense of being a man or woman (or a boy or a girl)"

[FluffyWuffy100]

I think you're showing your true colours here. Trans women are women

No. Trans women are tran women. Not women.

[Putyourdamnshoeson]

Gender is made up bullshit intended to keep people in their place. My daughter is not trans because she doesn't like pink and dollies and wants cropped hair.

I'm just fine with personality thanks Barb

[BeyondWitchbitchterf]

Why are we using GLAAD definitions in the uk? I prefer the Oxford English Dictionary personally:

Woman
NOUN plural women

1An adult human female.

[PidgeonPodge]

Probably best not to take your biology lessons from GLAAD...they have drunk of the coolaid. If I remember rightly they were 'disappointed' when a fuss was caused about biological males entering into a womans only competition.

[JennyHolzersGhost]

I think I would do the same as I would with anyone who was trying to take over w group I had set up and was the organiser of. I’d contact a bunch of the regular attendees I most trusted, a good range of people from across the spectrum in terms of roles, seniorities, geographies if relevant etc, and ask them to join a steering committee that I was setting up ‘because it’s getting too big for me to manage on my own’.
The Wendy would be invited to be a member too but somehow all the other steering committee members would be me-loyalists. Then I’d take it from there, giving that person specific unsexy tasks and a ‘diversity’ portfolio etc as others have suggested. They won’t be able to outvote you !

If the people I approached didn’t want to join a steering committee I’d quit and say it’s too much for me to do alone and it’s a shame so few people want to help.
Then I’d sit back, take a low profile for a few months and enjoy the fireworks.

[CircleofWillis]

As an aside, I have often seen the phrase ‘drunk the Kool-aid’ used on mumsnet and other places and just feel quite uncomfortable as it actually refers to the suicide and murder of nearly 900 people from Jonestown. Many were children and the elderly and almost 100 of whom were infants. I’m never sure if people know the connection when using the phrase flippantly in everyday conversation.

[Rubies12345]

Here we go again....

[BeyondWitchbitchterf]

Personally circle, I'm not a fan on "drunk the kool aid" since reading more about Jonestown. It seems many of the women were likely coerced to go along with it due to fear though so... maybe it is appropriate but not in the way people mean it...

[noeffingidea]

Funny how balsamicbarbara can C+P from Glaad but seems unable to find their way to the Oxford English dictionary. Why is that, Barbara?

[Mrsmadevans]

Hand it all over to Alex and give yourself a pat on the back for getting out .

[Eltonjohnssyrup]

Errrrrrrrr I understand you're writing for illustration purposes, but could you please not send Alex in the direction of my people?

Oh don't worry. He won't be interested in minorities who are actually, y'know. Women. You're not oppressed enough. All those decades of slavery are nowt compared to someone who couldn't wear a twin set and pearl in public.

[PurpleTango]

Alex is a bloke. He has no place in a group set up for women only. Send him on his way

[BoffinMum]

This happened with one of the medical education deaneries, where due to a single person's agenda it all started being about gender neutrality on all the forms and in all the meetings, and the actual education improvement aspect was undermined by all the distraction. Many people wouldn't apply for jobs in the team for quite a while as they started to sound completely wacko. Standards went down IMVHO.

I am also experiencing it with a committee I chair where a bloke has decided we are all useless and he needs to run it, only nobody ever votes for him because he is crap.

The problem is, if you give them projects and let them bollocks up it can go one of two ways - either they flounce or they blame you. Sometimes both. So how do smooth operators deal with this?

I think it might be an option to say to Alex that this is too big and important an issue to be confined to your organisation and that she needs to set up a whole independent one, something with which you can help.

Might work - if it doesn't you may have to be prepared to walk.

[donquixotedelamancha]

I have often seen the phrase ‘drunk the Kool-aid’ used on mumsnet and other places and just feel quite uncomfortable

Hear, hear. It is very important that nobody ever uses language in a way that makes others uncomfortable. I can't believe someone would use an phrase that has a historical connection to suffering.

On a completely unrelated note: Alex says she's a woman, so she's a woman.