Help! Where do I start explaining the trans issue to male friend?

[peacelikeariver]

Just got into this with male friend who thinks it's nice to be kind and inclusive.
Sure is, but he is apparently clueless about all the trans issues/trampling all over womens right stuff.
Just send me links to scientific journals declaring sex is not binary( largely about intersex conditions).
Where do I start?
How do I explain?
I usually keep my mouth shut but this is a really good friend and I'm a bit shocked.

Yes it's quite sobering. I asked him how he would define man and woman and at what point he believes a man turns into a woman. He says he doesn't know. He believes sex and gender are social constructs. We talked about transwomen in womens prison and he apparently consideres the odd raped female inmate acceptable collateral damage for the sake of inclusiveness. And he refuses to debate any further. That man is a biological scientist! I'm honestly stunned.
So looks like I'm down a friend, anyone want to be my new friend?

I await to meet his new girlfriend.

Just getting into those questions in a discussion will begin to lead to everything else. There’s a reason why TRAs etc are so keen not to let anyone define what the word woman means - because as soon as you do all their arguments crumble around them.

Yes! Great post.

He believes sex is a social construct?? And he’s a biological scientist ??? Fucksake

I’m
Sorry you’re down a friend OP but any man who thinks the odd raped female is justifiable collateral isn’t somone you need as a friend

Yes it's quite sobering. I asked him how he would define man and woman and at what point he believes a man turns into a woman. He says he doesn't know. He believes sex and gender are social constructs. We talked about transwomen in womens prison and he apparently consideres the odd raped female inmate acceptable collateral damage for the sake of inclusiveness. And he refuses to debate any further. That man is a biological scientist! I'm honestly stunned.

It's cognitive dissonance. He has come near to questioning elements, and he knows he can't answer certain questions you've asked, but something tells him the whole card house will come down if he concedes and then he'll have to be a transphobe and not woke. Hence no further debate.

All these foolish people are the same. I lose all respect for people who know they can't answer but double down.

I asked him how he would define man and woman and at what point he believes a man turns into a woman. He says he doesn't know.

From one of mine (teenage at the time): 'I don't know! Nobody knows! It's one of those things you can't understand unless you're trans, but just because you don't understand it doesn't make it not true!'

A few years later, he is still nice to his trans friends as he should be and wishes them happiness in their decisions to have drastic surgery, but no longer believes that anyone changes sex. He has experienced the joys of the mixed-sex loos at university and hates them, and he can see why the female students loathe them even more.

I can talk to him without either of us losing our temper. But it took time.

@FamilyOfAliens

Sorry to break it to you, but it is deeply weird to show pictures of people to your friends and demand to know whether they'd sleep with them or not to prove a point, hypothetical or otherwise.

Leave the guy alone. He's told you his views. You're going to be exhausting company if you insist on making them agree with you about everything.

I think it was when I told my DS that gay people were getting pelters for not fancying the opposite sex that it clicked as ridiculous and unfair

If he thinks sex is a social construct he's either a liar or an idiot. Also, why send you links to articles about DSDs if sex is a social construct. Also (I've not read the whole thread) but does he consider himself to have a sexuality? He just sounds like a sexist pillock to be fair. I guess all those women and girls who've experienced any form of sexism whatsoever were just too stupid to realise they could identify their way out of it.

What floored me the most was talking about the prisons issue and the inherent risk to female inmates. I asked about how much risk to women he considered acceptable in order to make transwomen happy and not hurt their feelings.(also pointed out why not 3rd spaces?) The answer: he doesn't know, there is always some risk in life. Personally I'd consider the only acceptable level of risk in that case zero. It is never acceptable to force women to allow their boundaries to be invaded to make men happy. If anyone is on the fence about that they are no friend of mine.
Bloody depressing though.

For my DH (who has been less tolerant than me for a while) the big issue was risks and opportunities lost for our daughter.
We have a dear friend who has had sex change surgery which blurred it for both of us
but actually its simple

Women are Women
Men are Men
Trans and intersex are trans and intersex

no discrimination against any
rights for each that do not trample on the others

Leave the guy alone. He's told you his views.

Oh do try and keep up @TheBlueStocking. #nodebate is so 2019.

Leave the guy alone
is so last decade

Very sad that a biological scientist says he thinks sex is a biological construct. He can’t really think that, so he is forcing himself to try to believe things that aren’t true, in order to keep his woke credentials. Psychologically, that is so harmful.

But my sympathy for him vanished when you said he considered the rape of women in prison was an acceptable risk.

Not really a kind person, then.

DodoPatrol: I have had similar conversations with my eldest DS. It finally clicked with him when he said that he would never take issue with his trans friends seeking violation, and I told him "yes, but they're not your rights to give away, to your friends or anyone else." And as the son of a gay woman, he completely gets, and is outraged by, lesbian erasure.

Seeking validation ffs. As if anyone seeks violation. 🙄

Very sad that a biological scientist says he thinks sex is a biological construct
Doh! I meant a social construct
Shouldn’t type in a hurry.

I was thinking--why do we respect people's identities?
Because there is no credible reason not to.
If someone said she was British, fine. I'm sure there's no limit to the courtesy that a liberal-minded person would extend to people with any kind of accent or color etc. in accepting that person's self-identity as British.
But if I, an American, decided that I identified as British to the point that I deserved British social services and a British government pension, even a liberal-minded person might question my identity. Even though I love Barbara Pym novels, Yorkshire tea, and long walks in the rain.
As a transBrit, I think I know a hell of a lot more about the UK than some stupid CisBrits who just live there eating McDonalds and don't even read Jane Austen novels or wear Laura Ashley.
Your country is smaller than mine, but I just have a feeling inside that because I like your castles and your books and lords and ladies, that I am one of you and you should share your resources with me. And if you don't share them with me, you are hateful.
Does that sound reasonable? Because if it doesn't, you're a trans-Brit-Phobe. And I don't see how that's different from any other kind of transphobe.

@FamilyOfAliens

Campaigning for every single person on earth to have the same opinion is sooo 1095 – 1492.

The thing is I asked because I wanted to know his views. Now I know. I don't particularly want to change his opinion or convince him of anything. I think we crossed the bridge of sanity into Lalaland at sex is a social construct. He has his opinion, I have mine. I don't think they are compatible.

Remember that many people don't know a lot about many issues, and a great many of them just put their trust in certain people or groups to work through things they are not experts on. A lot of people are not talented at thinking through philosophical questions, and plenty of them are scientists and engineers or have degrees.

Many women who post here came from the very same view your friend has, little knowledge, some half-formed ideas that may be partly right, wanting to be open-minded, trusting in the progressive parties they have always belonged to, unsure of the science of gender and sex because there is a lot of information out now that is confusing.

listeningquietly intersex people are either male or female just like everyone else. They are not somewhere in between and get pretty fed up with being used to demonstrate that sex is a spectrum when it obviously isn’t. @intersexfacts on twitter is very good at explaining this stuff.

@TheBlueStocking

Campaigning for every single person on earth to have the same opinion is sooo 1095 – 1492.

That’s your takeaway from this thread? Good grief.

@FamilyOfAliens

Ah, so it is OK for other people to have a different view to you without being lectured about it? Well, why didn't you say so in the first place? Silly!