Advice please: Dreading TRA friend's visit

[BetsyBobbin]

My husband has a friend from school who's coming to stay in our city this bank holiday. Although I'm friendly with her she was never my actual friend so I never knew her well.

She'll be here for four days and is staying with a gay couple whom she's friends with and who are very much part of the blue hair/alphabet soup brigade as far as I could see (she created a WhatsApp group and included all of us in, some brief conversations have been had). Outings as a large group have been organised.

She started following me on social media recently and I followed her back just to be gobsmacked by what I saw. Yes, you can guess, all the TWAW stuff.

Now, this woman is an educated person, works as a public defender and has an eight year old daughter and I just don't understand for the life of me how can someone who who works in law and has a daughter could be so captured like that (I do have theories but never mind that now).

Now, I'm staunchly GC. Having said that, I don't want to cause any drama and I'm hoping that those outings will be finished sooner than you can say "JK Rowling". BUT, if anything remotely TRA related is brought up I don't trust myself to remain silent.

I'm obviously not changing anyone's mind in a brief conversation but is there anything that I can say that could at least plant a seed of doubt in her head? I really don't want to get into long arguments trying to explain autogynephilia and what could happen to her daughter in a changing room but like I said, I don't trust myself to be quiet either.

I'm dreading this whole situation, send help please.

They're not the ones on here freaking out that there's someone who is on the TWAW side coming to visit and trying to work out the best way to piss them off.

I guarantee you there would be outrage if it was a TWAW adherent working out the best way to tell their evil TERFy guest that they're wrong.

The OP says she doesn't want to cause any drama.

But we all know the type she is describing. They never miss an opportunity to shoehorn this crap into the conversation, meaning that you either have to out yourself as "Tired of Explaining Reality to Fuckwits" or pretend to agree with them.

It's exhausting.

Have you read the thread? Loads of the posts are about how to shoehorn the topic into conversation or to provoke this person. Despite the OP saying she doesn't want to cause drama and isn't going to bring it up.

This thread is advocating the exact kind of behaviour it's railing against.

It's quite stunning to see.

It seems they're not the only ones.

She quite clearly says "if it's brought up".

That's fair enough.

I don't usually bring trans issues up in conversation but if someone around me starts TWAW'ing I give it to them straight.

A number of directly copy-pasted quotes from various posters on this thread:

"I would be so tempted to leave my well worn copy of TRANS Gender Identity and the New Battle for Women’s Rights sitting on the arm of the sofa like this…..would that be too naughty?"

"I would wear my dinosaur necklace"

"I'd love to be able to look her in the eye and challenge her misogyny in a clear unemotional voice. So. I'd see it as practice."

"I think it is important to have as many conversations about this stuff as possible. It’s the only way to fix it."

"I'd probably just leave a JK Rowling novel lying on the table casually"

Versus:

"people like this love to sniff out "bigots" and "call them out""

"She'll cause disruption, cult mentality people always do."

"I'd have problems being in her company as the subject is bound to come up ( they can't keep their mouths shut )"

Yeah, it's only ever TRAs who try and crowbar the topic into conversation and who can't tolerate difference of opinion. Double standards abound.

Just treat people - even those you strongly disagree with - as you'd wish to be treated. In this case, not harangued for having the "wrong" view over a catch up with an old friend.

Yes, OP does.

Lots of other posters however...

If you think it's something that might come up in conversation it's a good idea to be prepared for what you might say though.

I wish I had been better prepared for a conversation about JK Rowling with a bunch of American libfems.

I wouldn’t bring it up but if she did I wouldn’t hold back. If she doesn’t like it, well then she needn’t visit again.

Oh crap I've muddled my thetans and my therians - don't you just hate it when you do that?!
It's too late to edit and my post doesn't make sense. What I should have said is, "CAMHS aren't helping teens to cleanse themselves of body thetans."
And my point was that it's harder to maintain philosophical distance with people who believe that everyone has a gender identity than people who believe that we are all infested with body thetans because the former belief is informing public services (education, healthcare, crisis services &c.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_thetan

I've thought of another analogy (in an effort to explain why holding one's tongue does not feel to me like the right thing to do here):
There is a Pentecostal denomination in Brazil which teaches that it's appropriate for a husband to be physically violent with his wife if she is unsubmissive, but as a courtesy to her he should make sure her bruises won't be visible in public so she isn't shamed by everyone knowing that she is an unsubmissive wife. (I heard about this church from a man who visited and attended a men's bible study group there).
How would you respond if a woman from this Church, who you knew to be an enthusiastic believer in all they teach (but is also a wealthy widow who is largely protected from the worst outcomes of this teaching), was an old friend coming to visit?
What if there were also lots of members of different councils who had converted to this denomination, and several women's shelters had been closed down. And there were lots of converts in healthcare, too, particularly in children's mental health services; girls who expressed shame after being sexually assaulted were being told this was the Holy Spirit convicting them of their guilt in tempting the man who assaulted them. And there were also converts in correctional services with great influence on policy and procedure, and several prisons were no longer segregating prisoners on the basis of sex, because these sinners didn't deserve the waste of resources that is involved providing safe, sex segregated prisons for women.
Could you honestly hold your tongue in this friend's company?
I really, actually am convinced that the belief that "trans woman are women" - especially when that belief informs what public institutions do - is as harmful to women and girls as the beliefs of the Pentecostal sect I described above.
I may be wrong, I'm always open to evidence that would prove me wrong. But I'm as confident of this as I am that that church in Rio is a shit of a place and the world would be better if it didn't exist.

Look, @Cazpar please read and comprehend the entirety of individual posts before leaping onto your soap box. A great many posters remarked they would not broach the topic or volunteer their opinion BUT if the TRA visitor brought it up they would then state their position. And then maybe leave their reading materials lying about!

Frankly I’m too long in the tooth to have the patience to listen to any guest who had the bad manners to spout dangerous nonsense, especially if it involved monstering perfectly reasonable people I admire.

I see your point.

The problem is that any form of intervention is highly unlikely to lead to any form of reflection or insight.

I'd also offer the analogy that if a man beats his wife, one does NOT call him out on it when they are round at your house, because guess what happens when they get home?

If it came up, I'd probably resort to asking the kinds of questions that you aren't supposed to ask.

I'd say, what do you want to achieve?

In this case, I think preparing or tooling up to have a massive row with your partner's old friend who is visiting to see him would be a really bad thing to do.

It isn't your responsibility and shouldn't be your aim to change her mind or to hold the banner for Terfdom. That mentality imo is exactly where the organisations who are repeatedly getting stuffed in the courts go wrong. Tolerating different beliefs held by individuals means exactly that. Not getting into a total panic because someone you (and I) have a significant divergence of opinion with is coming to visit.

If it comes up I'd do what @Delphinium20 suggested. Don't say it's controversial; to her it isn't. Just change the subject.

I'm not in the UK so a lot of people aren't aware of the debate. A friend who is a teacher brought it up and was surprised that I was not on-board with it - in her words, she knew I was less conservative in outlook than her so didn't understand my objections. I think in such cases it can be useful to challenge people, or at least push back a bit so that they realise that many "normal", left-wing people who support gay rights have a big problem with this ideology.

"Tooling up"???? Ha ha ha, mate!

Some of the self righteous hyperbole is something to behold - but I think illustrates quite well that there are those who will see - and bad faith misinterpret - what they want to prop up their own ego.

And on Reddit she'll have 5k likes....

with a colleague once who said TWAW and I just looked at him, snorted and said “of course they’re not, don’t be so daft” (this was before I knew what a big deal it all was) and he never brought it up again.

Like you say you won’t change anyone’s mind but you can let them know you’re not going to put up with any nonsense either.

Amazing work @SoupChicken

Advising to avoid cult prosleytisers is perfect advice designed to remove any potential drama.

Women humorously discussing ways to deflect or defend against a cult prosleytiser on a thread entirely about that subject is not the gotcha you think it is.

Just treat people - even those you strongly disagree with - as you'd wish to be treated.

You could even follow your own pious advice occasionally Cazpar, rather than rudely sneering at other women on Mumsnet because you personally disapprove of their approach to feminism. That's quite "shitty petty behaviour" (to quote you) too.

Riiiiight, I posted this late last night, replied once, went to bed, had a mega busy day today and only now I'm having a moment to myself to browse SM and whoaaa, it took me a while to catch up with all the posts. Some very amusing replies here and I'd like to thank all the suggestions, even though I won't be able to use some of them 😅

I can't reply to everyone individually but just wanted to clarify a few points for the PPs who got a little confused along the way and misinterpreted didn't read properly what I wrote:

I don't have a problem with gays or trans people. They can do whatever they want, just not at the expense of women's hard fought rights. The inclusion that they seek is excluding women from their own spaces.

I can't avoid her entirely because like I said, some outings have been organised and tickets bought for the whole group: me, DH, Friend, Friend's gay friends (3 of them). I don't dislike her and was actually looking forward to seeing her before I saw her SM and learned that she was going to stay with friends with whom she shares the same beliefs.

I'm not "spoiling for a fight". Quite the opposite, trying to avoid one. I don't intend to bring the issue up at all. I asked advice regarding what to do IF the issue was brought up as I find it hard to remain silent just smiling and nodding politely. There has to be a middle ground between full blown argument and staying quiet and putting up with nonsense.

My husband wholeheartedly agrees with me and shares my views.

I'm not wasting my time trying to convince someone who's been captured and if the issue is brought up in conversation I have decided that I might go to the loo or to the bar to buy a drink. HOWEVER, like a PP said it above, my red line is someone mentioning JK Rowling, my absolute shero 🙌🏼
Then I really won't be able to bite my lips and stay silent, I'll have to say something.

Thanks to everyone who understood me and gave me good suggestions, I really appreciate it 👍🏼

I would change my Facebook photo to a suffragette ribbon. The she will know where you stand before she gets to you and it may keep her off the topic.

With respect, I simply wouldn't go, bookings or no bookings, group or no group. Anybody who lectures and prosleytises is exhausting. I'd assume she's going to try to lecture and scold and absolutely totally avoid her as she sounds like a source of conflict and anxiety and life is just too short. But each to their own, of course.