Should I have stormed out?

[Pippr]

It's a difficult one. I'm in a friendship group of 3 and we've been friends since high school, so over 15 years. We are a group of 2 girls and 1 man (homosexual).

Man feels that trans rights is the same as the rights gay men had to fight for.

Both myself and other female friend have dealt with abusive men. I've been in a very abusive relationship, one in which I was sexually assaulted in and 2 years after escaping, am still harassed through regularly (and he tells me is my fault because I don't block him, despite the fact that if I DO block him and he makes new accounts to threaten to break down my door if I do it again, and I have children. If I don't reply he doesn't threaten such things, so it seems like putting up with his messages and ignoring them are easier) Friend has grown up with a father who was abusive to her mother. It took her until she was older to realise how abusive he was. She cut him off, and he now uses his powerful position to find out everything about her and sends her emails to tell her he knows.

We have often debated trans and it's always been a very constructive debate. He explains his views. I explain mine. It gets heated but by the end we both understand our reasons. It's never ended badly.

Tonight out of nowhere he called me a bigot. I asked why and he said for my trans views. I said that was an unacceptable thing to call me when he knows my views are based on very real things for both me and our friend. He said he's 'sorry if I felt him calling me a bigot was so awful, but if I wasn't being a bigot it wouldn't be such a trigger'. Friend said that if he respects me and my views like he's always claimed to, then the word bigot is unacceptable and he needs to apologise. He refused to and said I claim to be a feminist but apparently I have no right to comment on feminism and unless I include trans, I'm not a feminist. In the end I stormed out in tears. My friend followed me and walked me home; she said she agreed it was an unacceptable thing to say and would talk to him, but to be honest I'm gutted that i was the one who had to leave, I'm not a bigot, I'm really not. I just want women to have safe spaces. I couldn't care less what men/women want to wear and do.

If anyone has any valuable articles to help me, he is very 'oh show me the evidence because it doesnt really happen' whilst also showing 0 evidence himself, so I would be really grateful.

Apologise for the rant, I'm sat in bed stewing and just so upset my first night with pals for a while got spoilt.

Tell him to do the work and educate himself.

My dear, I say this with the best intentions, but he behaved disgracefully, knowing your history. It's kind of you to want to share articles with him, but you do not need to justify your boundaries to anyone, least of all a man who just treated you like that.

He might be a long term friend, but I'd seriously be thinking about putting lots of space between you because he's a complete dick.

I agree with Flora (((hugs))) crappy crappy thing to happen.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3348290-It-will-never-happen-resource-thread

Well I would suggest you share this thread with him, but he'll just stick his fingers in his ears and go "twaw, twaw, twaw" so you would be wasting your time. I am beyond sick of men telling women that our rights don't matter.

I hate to drip feed I really do. I know it's completely irrelevant. But to add I'm a newly qualified paediatric nurse and experienced my first death this week and it unexpectedly knocked me for six. He knows I've been in bits and completely emotionally unstable all week, he even got his mum to have a chat with me as she's a nurse too and gave me a lecture on knowing when I need to just take a break. I can't believe hed speak to me like this on said break.

He is a wanker. He is not a friend. Cut him out. You know what he thinks of you now, so dont look back.

But also I'm not a feminist. Why not?

I'd ask him if he really believes that women are an oppressed group. I think a lot of men don't really believe they are, actually.

But actually i wouldn't ask him that. I'd be thinking that he's just looking for another stick to beat me with. I'd leave him alone for a bit until I felt less hurt and could think about what I really wanted, going forward, without letting myself get exposed to another bashing session.

Thanks though everyone, he likely will stick his fingers in his ears but at least if I have valid articles and other backing except myself he can't claim 'the world isnt putting up with bigots anymore' and group me with them!

@KarlKennedyisaterriblehusband I meant that's what he said, that if I don't include trans people that I am not a feminist

@namechange5575 We have had that discussion, he believes that they have nothing on gay/trans in terms of oppression so it doesn't really matter.

Wow what a horrible person this guy is. He had no right to treat you like that. Shitty friend. I dont blame you for being shocked and upset, but it isnt you, it's him. What did he really expect to happen if he said that--that you would immediately change your views? No, he was having a go for the sake of it.

Please end your friendship with this utter tosser.

We’ll then by his logic don’t gay men need to centre women in their homosexuality as any woman could identify as a man?

I’m sorry OP. Hope this week at work is better

Dont waste your breath.

Does he think he'd like a sexual relationship with a non medically transitioned transman? If not, it makes him a bigot too. I wonder what he thinks about that.

There’s a great article from a while ago now by one of the original people that set up stonewall explaining why they are wrong on the trans thing and how homophobic it is.

Also if a ftm transman walked into the pub, who didn’t particularly pass as a natal male but claimed to be a gay male, would he fancy them and get into a relationship with them? If not, why not? Because only someone who is transphobic would refuse surely?

And if he was younger, how did he know he was gay and not trans? Because these days there’s an incredible good chance he would be told he was trans, not gay, and that he was being transphobic for saying he was gay rather than wanting to be trans...

He sounds like he is exactly the kind of man who frankly doesn't really give a toss about women. Unfortunately there seems to be a high rate of narcissism in the gay/trans male community, I think they absolutely LOVE forcing others to center them. Giving them more of your oxygen isn't worth it. The fact that he treated you like that shows you who he is, hopefully he will apologize and you can be friends again but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Honestly, use white hot anger at how he, another abusive male, has treated you, a woman. And leave him in the dust. He’s no friend. He’s an abusive little arsehole dripping in male privilege. Being gay doesn’t give him the right to treat women like the dirt under his shoe and dictate that other males can be women and must be centred.
He can fuck right off.

Well he is a homophobe. If he dares call you a bigot again, I do hope you point this out to him, and explain why, as it sounds as if he is a bit thick on top of being a misogynist and a homophobe.

This is misogyny in action. I'm sorry to say it, and sorry you've had such a bad time, because this guy is an old and - up until now - good friend, and who can afford to lose old friends? I argue with my own (adult) kids on this, in fact I argued hugely with one of them just last night & I reckon this is a generational issue. In one way, it's great that they so staunchly defend the rights of others, but men still have a massive blind spot when it comes to women's rights. They don't want to hear about actual lived experience of assault and abuse by men, it upsets them - and my DS actually tried to dismiss it as 'merely subjective'.

I try to rationalise it like this, I don't know if this fits your friend or not: for them, supporting trans rights is the equivalent of people of my generation (b.1961) supporting feminism. In the late 70s & 80s I took up that cause very keenly, it was a major part of my political outlook and I'm pretty sure I wasn't very patient with anyone who seemed to me to be chipping away at women's hard-won rights.

Being a man, I supported feminism in a very doctrinaire fashion, because ofc I had no experiences of my own and for all my 'male feminist' outlook, I realise with hindsight I wasn't all that great at actually shutting up and listening to women & taking their experiences to heart.

So I think today's male supporters of trans rights are in a similar position, and they can't cope with the awkward existence of that large population of women for whom the presence, actions & intentions of men, and some trans women, are always going to be problematic. My DS tries to maintain the purity of his 'objective', 'philosophical' viewpoint but he needs to try harder - try at all - to empathise with others' lived reality. He needs to realise that you can't say to a woman who's been assaulted, "You've lost your objectivity."

I remember his incredulity when his mum pointed out how widespread sexual harassment of women is. He thought she was trying to make some sort of outrageously exaggerated anti-men claim, and she just patiently tried to tell him that very few women reach 30 without being touched up, hit on, groped by a man, and that it doesn't take all men to be gropers for practically all women to have experienced it.

On the face of it, it seems especially hard to fathom why a gay man, who must have been on the receiving end of true bigotry, would so unfairly throw that word at someone he knows so well. You must be doubting how well he really knows you. But I suspect that your experiences annoy him; they spoil his preferred view. How dare pesky women force everyone, trans people included, to balance difficult ethical claims, when it's so much more satisfying to express full-on support for trans rights, demand that others do the same & brand anyone who disagrees a bigot.

But if he won't make efforts to wind his neck in, apologise and above all listen, then he's simply part of the misogyny problem. When there are competing moral claims, it's still easier to slap the women down.

I think the question for me is other than on this issue, is he kind/respectful/a person who listens? Has he been a good friend generally?

If the answer is yes, and this is an aberration, then I think what you need to consider is for some reason he doesn't "get" what you are trying to tell him, and to him it really just seems like bigotry. He might be posting on some page right now "long time friend who is otherwise lovely has bigoted view on TW, can we stay friends?"

I've talked to one or two gay men who were really it seemed unable to see this issue other than through the lens of a comparison to homophobia. Even the fears around safety - all they associated it was with people saying that gay men were predators, bad to be around children, more likely to push boundaries.

I suspect that until they have a personal experience or someone close to them does, on the wrong side of this, people like this will really struggle to see what the potential and real problems are.

I don’t think he’s a friend anymore. He sounds like he’s always been a dick re your relationship - ‘its your fault’??! He’s never had to think about how to best protect his children, which is largely a male privilege. That’s just a side point, he’s a dick sums it up. No point sending him articles.

I remember his incredulity when his mum pointed out how widespread sexual harassment of women is. He thought she was trying to make some sort of outrageously exaggerated anti-men claim, and she just patiently tried to tell him that very few women reach 30 without being touched up, hit on, groped by a man, and that it doesn't take all men to be gropers for practically all women to have experienced it.
This is so true.

If he cannot accept other people's views then he is the bigot

Should you have stormed out?
Yes.
Why would you spend a minute longer around someone bring so utterly disrespectful to you? Why would you spend time with a supposed friend who knew how awful your week had been and then came and verbally bashed you over the head?

In short you'd have been crazy to stay.

I'm sort about your little patient this week. That must be incredibly hard.

Bigot? It's quite funny how it's people that are massive bigots themselves that throw this insult around.