Explaining my gender criticalness to recently out trans friend

[Albadross]

A colleague emailed me today to say he’d seen my recent tweets that are critical of trans activism and was nervous to tell me something because he didn’t want it to affect our friendship. I’ve never actually met him, but we’ve spoken on the phone so it is a little odd that he phrased it like that. He says he needs to learn more and I don’t think he’s part of the trans lobby so how do I explain things in a way that won’t make him feel like I’m questioning his feelings about himself?

Argh!

Dont go to this meeting, and block him on social media.
If you are female and autistic, then you also have protected characteristics. You have the right to your beliefs, you are not harming anyone with them. But dont risk your job over them. This could get very messy very easily.

I think the best that could come of it is that he wants to mansplain womanhood to you irl.

A lot of men do this - they like to play sport with opinionated feminists - mansplaining, devils advocate, etc, etc. They sometimes get an almost pervy kick out of having your attention by just dragging out all the old arguments, and having all that historical Patriarchal weaponry (crap 'science', crap stereotypes, crap 'evidence') to hand to simply wear you out. It is a massive power trip for them and such a waste of any feminists' time and energy.

If he is genuinely gender critical he wouldn't be worried about damaging your 'friendship' through discussing things with you. I think his behaviour suggests an entitled man wanting attention from a woman and a desire to play sport with you - all that BS of men (and/or transwomen) have it just as bad, or worse than women... Lets hope the sport he intends doesn't include seeing if he can damage your reputation and career though....

I think the posters here are all being very wise in telling you define your boundaries with him. Keep it professional. Good luck - and I can really understand how you may be feeling hopeful and curious, but I think caution is the way to go - your best allies are always other women feminists - not random men

Ok so this is even more concerning. You say your tweets are private and you don’t use your real name. Yet he has seen them. It seems that he has tracked you down - why would he do this? Please make your Twitter account private and please do not be drawn any further into a ‘debate’ or even ‘an exchange of opinions’ with this man. Step away for your own protection. Say that you like to keep work and religion/politics etc separate. Do not engage.

Sorry - you don’t say your tweets are private, you say you don’t use your real name on there. And yet he’s taken the time and effort to track you down. That is what’s concerning for me. Alarm bells all over the place.

if OP is using the same email address he could have found her that way or had her suggested as a follow

also if OP has spoken out about anything on trans, he could have googled and found her that way.

I would agree it's sinister if he tried to track her down but it could be that he came across her in the other standard Twitter ways.

How did he find your tweets?

I'd steer clear of a discussion, I think. Or send links to gender critical websites or the MAgdalene Burns or Peach Yogurt youtube videos

So emailed you and says he needs to learn more about gender critical feminism. Fair enough, maybe he does need to learn more, but it's not your job to teach him. You don't have to meet up with him just because he asks you to.

I agree with pp, if all he wants to do is learn, there are plenty of good websites out there.

I'd steer clear of a discussion, I think. yes

Or send links to gender critical websites or the Magdalene Burns or Peach Yogurt youtube videos

No. Do not do this.
They have very strong views which many people disagree with. I don't agree with a quite a lot of Berns and I don't much like her style of presentation. I would not recommend them to anyone I didn't know well.

I've read all the posts and Deckoff and Prickly are right - politely decline the offer of coffee and play the no politics/religion at work card.

maybe he just needs pointing towards some reading?

I agree with all the warnings above. Why don't you ask one of your friends if they'd be open to having him talk to them instead?

Sorry - agree with everyone else. Don't assume that it's just your work with the one company that's at risk. What if he outs you all over the internet as an evil transphobe? Don't think it can't happen - the woman who organised the debate on the GRA had to leave her home and nearly lost her job, due to threats.

I would reply, declining the invitation on the "not appropriate topic for workplace" grounds that PPs have suggested and adding that you wish him well. Assume that ALL communications with him could end up shared with your employers and word them accordingly - be consistently polite and positive, even if he becomes provocative.

I would reply, declining the invitation on the "not appropriate topic for workplace" grounds that PPs have suggested and adding that you wish him well

I think I would let his email drop off my computer screen and "forget" it.

Gosh, this all sounds rather more sinister than I’d imagined.

He knows my twitter handle because I gave it to him - no stalking involved. The tweet that worries him was me saying that using ‘cis’ is offensive to some women and I’d posted that as a response to a blog someone else had written. I didn’t even say I thought that.

I don’t think he’s likely to try and ‘expose’ me, he openly said he’s very nervous about transitioning and said he was very relieved when I told him I fully accepted him and hoped his transition was as easy as possible. But I will follow your advice since everyone else seems to be in agreement.

Autism sucks. I cannot do boundaries right no matter how many times I fuck it up. I’ve gone through and deleted anything on twitter that says anything gender-critical but it makes me hate myself that I have to bow to something I believe is wrong.

@datun what do you think?

Albadross I don't think you need to completely silence yourself - maybe have a twitter account that you don't share irl with colleagues and clients?

It would drive me crazy to keep quiet about it so i have safe outlets for it on MN and twitter.

Also, I think this guy is being slippery and would have a lot of people, autistic or not, suckered in - we all mean well don't we? But a lot of gender critical people on MN, or their friends, have probably made mistakes along these lines and are wiser for it.

The cis word offends a lot of women (including me) and I am annoyed that he is deciding it ‘worries’ him. It’s actually got nothing to do with him. He doesn’t get to decide or define how women, as adult female humans, want to describe themselves.

Your frustrations annoy me too. It’s hard having to keep quiet about biology. I’ve had to take mandatory trans ‘training sessions’ where I’ve had to bite my lip so hard it almost bled. Unfortunately it’s hard to be principled and stand up for your rights when you have bills to pay. It’s wrong and it’s unfair. I wonder how many other women want to stand up against what is happening but feel silenced because they are scared of the ramifications for their livelihoods, their reputations and their future.

It saddens me that the only, and best, advice that we can give you is to ‘disengage, go on lock down and move on,’ but that is, unfortunately, how it is right now.

You owe him nothing. Autism doesn’t come into it. You do not owe him an explanation or a justification. If he wants a debate he can find it elsewhere. If he wants to mansplain what it is to be a woman then he can do it elsewhere. Walk away.

Albadros I think you are doing boundaries well. You were unsure so you got advice so something is working well. People here are giving advice based on what you are telling them and the situation in the wider world and what they know. I am not sure I would have thought of any of this either and it has really made me think.

Had he been anyone else it would've been a lot more obvious to me that I should keep schtum, but he's been almost excessively apologetic about everything since he started in his role (he took over from the person who got me on board about 6 months ago) about things that really don't bother me at all, and even in our first ever phonecall he was gushing about my work, so I thought perhaps he really hasn't been aware of all the battling going on between RadFems and TRAs.

When he said he'd love to talk more over coffee I took it to mean that he wanted to know what women's concerns were so I had framed it in my mind that I'd simply talk about why women need female-only spaces and how we'd rather everyone could be accepted presenting however they want to and abolishing gender stereotypes. I'd never be able to tackle the 'are trans women women' thing because it's not in my nature to say something that could be hurtful to someone so lovely. I had also thought I'd reinforce that I'm not anti-trans at all, and I pointed him to Miranda Yardley's blog and said it was worth a read even if he didn't agree with any of it.

I've had endless men over my working life tell me that 'all women do xyz' and nobody batted an eyelid, so I suppose I was thinking that if that's ok, me saying I want to keep female-only spaces but still support trans rights would be too. The job I do for his org is very much about being a lone voice in an area with a lot of similar issues so that has set the tone already really. It's my job to speak out against things that are considered normal to most people, if that makes any sense.

Thanks @Terrylene

@creamswirls I honestly don;t think he has any bad intentions. I think he was worried about offending women and not even being aware that they might be offended, iyswim. He's definitely a very anxious person and a people-pleaser, when we talk on the phone he is clearly someone who cares deeply about making a positive difference through the work we both do.

I think you need to be aware of the risk v reward calculation here and my feeling is it's heavily weighted towards risk.

In the best case scenario where he's full of good intentions if you talk to him he understands more about gender critical feminism which he can find on the internet anyway, or you don't talk to him and that's pretty much it.

In the worst case scenario if you talk to him he could take offense and potentially get you in trouble with that workplace, maybe even more workplaces if he's feeling vindicative, accuse you of transphobia which would be very difficult to defend yourself from, or you don't talk to him and that's pretty much it.

He is a colleague that you don't know well - you do not owe him anything at all in the way of an explanation, and you certainly shouldn't feel pressured into a situation that can put your career at risk just because there's a chance he may be a nice guy.

@Albadross

It’s a really tricky one. I’m not sure there is a right answer. You being autistic is something that would concern me, because I don’t have a complete handle on how that might impact on this discussion with him, should you choose to have it.

Although, as a pp said, you seem to be managing boundaries pretty well. If this thread is anything to go by.

It’s very tempting to want to speak to him, I can see. He also doesn’t sound like a crazy transactivist. Is he a late transitioner? Has he been married? Is he gay?

Whilst not foolproof, if you knew the answers to those questions, you might be in a better position to know whether he was a straightforward gay transsexual, or an autogynephile. If he is the latter (not gay, late transition, possibly been married), then I would stay far away.

If he is the former, then it’s more difficult.

Either way, as someone else said, the risk/reward aspect of this doesn’t seem worth it.

Tempting though it might be personally, your actual gain will be relatively small.

Are you worried about putting him off now?