AIBU? Trans friend....

[OrchardBlack]

Have NC'd for this.

So a close friend of mine (female) and I booked tickets to an event in our town some time ago, due to take place in a few weeks. Both excited and looking forward to it , all good.

A few weeks ago she asks me if a male , straight friend of hers can also join, no problem, the more the merrier. I've never met him.

Except it now transpires that he has (quite suddenly from what I gather) said he is transitioning to be a woman and will use this night as his 'coming out'. He has messaged my friend saying that he's going to wear a sun dress and heels and he's nervous but excited too. He has also said we are to refer to him by his female name. My friend says he is currently in a relationship with a woman.

Now my friend is saying she is finding this all a lot to take on so suddenly as she's known him for many years as his male name and never even seen him with makeup on. I asked if he would be using the women's toilets on our night out, she doesn't know but I can only assume he is.

I feel very uncomfortable, as does my friend. I am fully supportive of people choosing to live how they wish, I just can't help feeling he's high-jacked our night. He isn't out as trans to any of his family etc so he has said no photos of the night etc. I'm also massively concerned that he is clearly still attracted to women and what this means for the safe spaces such as toilets etc.

She says she doesn't feel like she can talk to him about it and is concocting a plan to say she has covid and giving me my money back so we don't go. I'm dissapointed as I was looking forward to it.

AIBU to be deflated and a bit annoyed??

@SoItWas

"I've never seen someone get a kick out of watching a lady use the loo tbh."

I have. I had a male "friend" (very occasional fwb over the years, but he knew I was dating someone else at the time), who I rarely drank with, who when we did have a drink one night (quite a lot in his case), barged in, while I was just starting to pee, and started to unzip himself, while asking for a bj/for me to fulfil a fantasy of his. It's as well I have good muscle control down there, I was able to stop peeing, fixed myself, shoved him away, gathered my stuff and ran like fuck!

If I were you, and friend had said that their friend, was going to wear a sundress and heels, but left it at that, I wouldn't be bothered at all. It's the "I'm really a woman, you have to use female pronouns, watch me encroach on female spaces, without saying a word" that boils my piss. Like being a woman is akin to wearing a costume, that's all there is to it (a costume that actual women can't take off). Oh and the hijacking your night, to make it all about them is a dick move (instead of planning their own separate night to make their debut).

I used this analogy with my ds recently, if someone took a pony, dyed it's hair black, painted it with black and white stripes, and said it was now a zebra, does that mean it really is a zebra now?

I heard another one last week. If you take orange juice and put it in a coke can it's still orange juice. It doesn't magically become the thing it is dressed up as.

The line about being attracted to women makes you worried about her using the womens loos… do you think lesbians attack women in loos?

@Synchrony So because it's "not a wedding", that means the OP and friend get their boundaries over-ridden and their hospitality thrown in their faces? Do you really think so little of women, that you think only a significant event would warrant pushing back over an entitled and privileged male stomping all over a night out and making it all about themselves? Really?

And wake up, he doesn't want photos because he is deceiving his partner. We all all know it. He is bolshy and arrogant as fuck, he clearly doesn't care otherwise, it's just that he is doing this behind his partner's back. If you support such male privileged abusive deception, that says more about you than anyone else.

A sundress and heels in April? At night? Honestly, if you want to dress up as a woman then fine, but at least do us the courtesy of doing a bit of research first.

@Rainbowshit

This is very selfish of this person. They were invited along to your and your friend's night out and intend to make it all about them.

Totally this: "me,me,me"

Synchrony, so what if it’s “not a big deal” for you to share toilets with men. You don’t get to throw away single sex spaces for the vast majority of women for whom it IS a big deal.
Are you happy that orthodox Jewish women, Muslim women, traumatised women with a history of rape or abuse, and every woman who values her privacy and dignity, would be excluded from public life by having no single sex lavatory available for them?

@Quaggars

Any inference that lesbians are just like transwomen, ie biological males, is implicitly implying that lesbians aren't quite women either

Nobody's saying lesbians are just like biological males though.
They're saying that you don't automatically think that lesbians are attracted to you/will sexually assault you because they fancy other women.
You're right, that is incredibly homophobic.
So how can people see and be disgusted by this (rightly) but can't see when it comes to transphobia?!

@Quaggars Because sexual assault is about POWER, not attraction. And men are physically stronger and more powerful than women, and have a PENIS they can rape women with. Lesbians, don't.

Does this really need to explained?

@frazzled1

I'd wager the transwoman envisages a giggling girly trip to the ladies at some point for the 3 of them.

No thank you.

He is probably very excited about "performing woman in a loo on a night out". He has probably been practicing the excited squealing, the fixing of lipstick, the bitching about boys. Perhaps he will start hysterically crying because x doesn't fancy him. Bleurch. He is invading your evening. Drop him.

@Susu49

Um, yes I think yabu. Why can't you be happy for him?

Disclaimer: I'm aware I don't hold the same views as many in mumsnet.

for a stranger lol

newyearnewname

Lesbians are women/female and as we know women/ females pose miniscule sexual risk to other women. Transwomen are male and again as we know males commit 99% of all sexual assaults.
Let's not forget that lesbians being women can use the women's toilets as its their space. Transwomen are male and it is not their space.

So people can only ever assault others if it's coming from a place of power?

@ClaryFairchild

Of course someone dressed as a woman will be using the women's toilets. I don't like to but can you imagine the abuse they will have if they enter that men's toilets?!

why would he face abuse in the mens toilets? Are males all inherently abusive.

I don't really understand to be honest. Your entitled to not want to be out with someone if you don't wnat to be and can unuvite them if you choose. That's your chocie but they have every right to dress how the choose as well just the same as they couldn't tell you not to turn up in a suit or in a mini body con dress. Photos well, I ahve female friends who will not let pictures be posted of them online.
Trans people can be attracted to either sex, and they are in a long term relationship so I can't see why you would be concerned. To be honest I've never understood the toilet arguments but that's me, I'm happy with unisex toilets.

@Quaggars

So people can only ever assault others if it's coming from a place of power?

@Quaggars Oh for goodness sake, if you really can't understand that 98% of sexual assaults are by men who by default have power, you are too far gone to reason with.

@ClaryFairchild

Of course someone dressed as a woman will be using the women's toilets. I don't like to but can you imagine the abuse they will have if they enter that men's toilets?!

See, when women talk about the very real threat to them from men in their spaces, they get advocates for this ideology, like Layla Moran, giving a little laugh and telling them that their are laws to get justice if that happened. Or that they are transphobic for even mentioning it.

But when the issues is males feeling threatened by men, we are told that it is inconceivable that they should be put at risk and of course they should be in women's spaces.

And that just shows the deep underlying misogyny in society that this movement is feeding off.

I would be annoyed that this person is invited and plans to use this night to come out! So it’d be a no from me and I’d go with someone else.

Just go and have your good night out.

The friend’s use of toilets is not your problem, it’s theirs.

If I was your friend I would be saying to Trans friend “great, get on with it, however you feel best, but this is our long planned event so we’ll just be doing our normal thing, no additional agenda, and tbh am reluctant to be complicit in anything your wife /family are unaware of as I don’t like secrets”.

I can't believe this is a genuine post. It reads like the content has been specifically designed to whip up maximum hate. The OP later asserts that it's not about trans rights but about having her night out highjacked - so why post it in the Feminism board?

And many of the responses
We women can think whatever we like about men living as women and women living as men, gender transitioning and trans rights etc etc etc - for what it's worth I am sceptical of many aspects - but that should be a campaign for / against government policy and should never spill out into hate against individuals - an actual FRIEND in this case - and their choices.

So, if the post IS genuine, I have the following advice for OP and her female friend:

1. You've got no idea how the evening is going to pan out or what it will make you feel until you try it.
2. If you feel uncomfortable about your other friend using the ladies toilets then perhaps need to look more closely at your choice of friends! I would have none of this kind of worry about any of my friends using any kind of toilet because I try not to associate with sex offenders.
3. Chances are you will have the same brilliant night out that you would have done if it was just the two of you, or maybe even more fun. It may open your eyes to the lived experiences of others. Give it a go.

Trans issue aside, it sounds like a shite night out that's been totally hijacked by a narcissistic drama queen that you haven't even met.

That's kind of the key point. Quite often you can, and should, put the trans issue aside.

The "trans issue" is an enabler for narcissistic drama queens. It's one way of avoiding pushback for narcissistic drama behaviour.

So naturally you see people who want to act like that using the label.

You can just treat them like you'd treat anyone else. If you wouldn't accept it from either a woman or a man, you definitely don't have to accept it from a "transwoman".

You don't even need to go anywhere near the sex/gender debate to draw that line.

And drawing that line would actually help make progress on that debate...

Although, of course, if some narcissistic drama queen is playing that game, then they will likely counter any non-compliance with an accusation of "transphobia". (And that will confirm that's the game they're playing). You just have to be confident that you're not letting any non-trans people act the same way to counter that...

why would he face abuse in the mens toilets? Are males all inherently abusive.

Indeed. And if they are, perhaps that's why certain places are segregated by sex.

Unless you think it doesn't matter if a woman is subject to male abuse, only when men are.

So your night out has been hijacked by a man who wants to cosplay and is railroading 2 women to be part of it?

This. He's all excited at the notion of a "girly"night out, and all that stuff about sharing fucking make up tips etc. It's a male (porn-fuelled) fantasy about what women are, and they think they can appropriate it.

You'll be told you're being unkind and transphobic. But he's the one being sexist and appropriating an identity that is not his.

Does his wife know about this ? If not you need to make it clear you won't be party to his "coming out" parade until he has told his wife and family.

If your creep radar is going off, which it sounds like it is - loudly - then listen to it.

This is good advice. The more naive posters here need to learn to trust their instincts when they are uncomfortable.