big argument with old friend

[ramenmonster]

Met up with old male (gay) friend and he raised the trans thing. He denied biological reality of two sexes, and told me lots of scientists and doctors would disagree that there is a biological difference between men and women. That men should be allowed in women's bathrooms, in women's sports, prisons. That the biological differences between XX and XY make no difference and those men participating in sports are "real women".

I asked him why it was always men who are telling what women should and shouldn't accept, why men are always the ones who tell us we have to "deal with it" and that apparently helping trans people is more important than women (despite us being the weaker sex and 50% of the population).

After some of the things he said I'm now wondering if he's really just a massive misogynist with no clue about actual women's issues. I'm not sure where our friendship can go from here.

Just venting and asking for some solidarity.

Sadly, I tend to find gay men to be completely inconsiderate of female issues ;(

Why did you ever think he had any clue about women’s issues anyway?
yes, he sounds extremely misogynistic, which from experience, many gay men are.

It isn't as simple as misogyny in my view. An awful lot of things I disagree with in this movement are driven by women, and the most passionate advocates for their 'trans kids' seem to be mothers. I think we are fooling ourselves if we think 'the tide has turned'. The landscape does look really different from 2018 but we haven't exactly gone back to a previous place, we're somewhere new.

I think most gay men know what it's like to be afraid in public. Gay bashing hasn't gone away, and you know that a man doesn't have to hold his boyfriend's hand in the street to get attacked. Same for men dressed as women in public.

I don't think that women insisting that we actually exist as a sex class mean we should be blamed for violent attacks on gender nonconforming males, usually by men (but sometimes involving women and girls too - as when Brianna Ghey was attacked). But I'd be pretty pissed off as a gay man if I was informed by a straight woman that I had NO idea about male violence.

If you actually want to be friends with him, you don't have to change your views, but at some point you have to listen to each other. Assembling 'gotchas' for future encounters won't achieve anything.

Yes your post confirms that most violence on men is done by men. And most violence against women is also done by men. So no, the OP doesn’t have to listen to him dismiss her fears and dismiss the realities of biological sex.

I wasn't saying the argument was an analogy to or literally the same as what he told her. I was more trying to say that it would be something many gay people would find offensive and would not consider forgiving someone and continuing a friendship over. It's not a perfect analogy because there isn't one here short of, I guess, saying Middle Eastern Muslim extremists have every right to murder gay people?

That's a really homophobic thing to say. Yes the friend was gay, and had questionable views, but talking about all gay men like this, really?

Poster should have said “most”. It really is most though.

What a ridiculous generalisation to make. Some get it, some don't, some have plenty to sat, some keep quiet. Just like anyone else.

My experience isn't that gay men aren't allies. It's that it doesn't even occur to them. I'm not going to blame them for that, they're busy checking their own backs are protected. When I actually speak with them about it, my friends do really get it, they understand the issues. They just don't factor into their lives the way they do ours.

The thing is I think polarisation and drawing lines in the sand like this "gay men are XXX" is really unhelpful and only adds fuel to the fire of saying that GC women are bigoted, not least because it's not true. Some gay men are (probably unknowingly) misogynistic and fail to grasp the impact on women. Many are not.

I have gay male friends who absolutely support my views.

I think this comment might have been misunderstood. It's just that the L and G have been stuck together historically to create solidarity for the homosexual movement. However, they have very different interests and needs as much as women and men do. so it's the realisation that's the shock as opposed to not liking gay men. That's what I understood from that sentence.

There are gay men who absolutely do 'get it' and are very strong voices. I immediately thought of Dennis Kavanagh (Gay Men's Network).

Too late to edit my last post, but I should have included Andrew Doyle.

Mr Menno is extremely vocal in his support of women's rights.

I’ve read your post a couple of times, and I still can’t seem to get my head around what you are trying to say here.

You mean any man's opinion is more informed than a woman? In this case this particular man is talking utter nonsense. I someone told me there was no difference between a man and a woman in the context of sex/biology I would think them both ignorant and ill-informed - oh, and bloody stupid.