How would you deal with T in a friendship group?

[FourSevenTwo]

How would you deal with T people around you? In general and in my situation?

The main question:
A male in a friendship group decided to go full TW, starting hormones and so on, changing name to the women's form and coming out with pronouns.

Unfortunately, our language is heavily gendered*. For example, instead of Hi Alex, you would say Hi Alexi for a man and Hi Alexo for a woman. If you want to say anything in past tense, like Where were you yesterday, you have to use men's or women's form for were.
This means it is not really possible to ignore it in direct interaction.

I'm not willing to pretend through language that I see him as a woman. I don't and won't. But I don't insist on calling him him. There are some not great alternatives (it, plural - with it's own verb forms, switching to English), but they are all very noticeable.

I'd like to find a solution for our coexistence in this friendship group. I'm not asking about a language solution here, more about an approach.

I'm considering

1. reaching him with a message, saying I've heard the news, and I can't affirm, but, I'd like to keep things civil, so is there some alternative we can agree on?

2. ingoring the issue and limiting communication on grammatically neutral constructions (which will be limiting and obvious after a time)

3. some other option?

To answer possible questions.

• I'm GC woman - in the adult human female sense, in the gender identity terminology I'd claim agender. I absolutely understand people are unhappy with gendered roles, I just don't believe that trying to become/pretend to be/claiming to be the other one is the solution. And I'm sure one can't change sex.

• It seems that majority of our shared friends are willing to be kind, some believe it, some just don't care, men with no skin in the game.

• *I'm elsewhere in EU, not a self-ID country. I don't ask about legal aspects, just personal approach. Discussing in my country's forums would be hard, as we are a small population.

• The group is about games, meeting at someone's home, so no issue with single sex spaces, and generally gender doesn't play a role in the group's activities.

• Yes, I'd like to try to keep the group if possible. I see it as a political topic and I don't need to discuss politics all the time.

• Edit to add : I've name changed for this one. Sorry it is long. And yay, I've managed to force the formatting to behave!

It hurts all women to play along with the idea that what makes us women is something to do with how we think.

It hurts all women if there is no language that refers to us and only to us.

It hurts all women if the link between our history of oppression, marginalisation and exploitation because of our sex, and who we are and the challenges we face today, is obfusticated or denied.

Here's my compromise. I'm happy to call a man by a traditionally female name if he prefers it as long as he continues to call himself a man.

Any pretence that he has a woman's name because he is a woman is a sexist, misogynist position that does not deserve respect or courtesy.

Your post seems to completely miss the point the post your quoted made.

“People's jobs and organisational memberships are similarly terminated if they don't comply with 'authoritarian' (...or 'woke' used pejoratively) 'demands' of women, peoples of colour, immigrants, lgb+, elders, etc...”

None of these groups are asking anyone to act as if their subjective reality is material reality. But those groups you mention have axis of oppression based on material reality not on a philosophical belief.

You can force team other groups all you like but it will not change the reality that if a person is a male person, they will ever be female. And using the term woman for themselves will still never make them a woman.

A male person who has a transgender identity is only ever a male person with a transgender identity. Just because that male
person might claim to be a woman doesn’t make them any type of woman. They only ever experience their life as a male person who claims to be a woman without having any understanding the experience of a woman.

Every single experience in a male person’s life is a male person’s experience. Processed by a male person and interpreted by a male
person. It is an act of misogyny to leverage any male experience from a male perspective as being a female one .

The whole 'it doesn't hurt you to' bollocks is so coercive.

It's bloody difficult to use language that is unnatural and defies what you're seeing - doing the stroop test all the time. It does hurt people, they can't do it.

It's a big ask and that's even before you get to the whole undermining of safeguarding and women as a sex class and their human rights in law.

The safeguarding fail alone causes hurt. So yes, it does hurt people to accede to unreasonable demands such as wrong-sex pronouns / language. It's certainly more hurtful to have to do this (walk on eggshells) than for the trans person to just recognise reality. They're never going to ever get everyone to play along anyway, far more healthy for them to recognise reality

You can use any words you wish to in describing your behaviour. If it is inaccurate, people can simply disagree.

For instance, I don’t believe anyone denies you ‘exist’. Have you changed sex class from what sex category your body was born into? No, you haven’t in the material reality. However, you can say whatever you want and if it is inaccurate everyone else can choose fo not engage with you.

And if someone demands that others use the pronouns for the sex category they are materially not, they should not be disappointed when people opt not to and to use correct sex word.

Gender critical definitions of 'sex categories being born into' have no mapping to my life. Society has impacted my life as a child, teen and adult and my presence and experience maps to 'trans' and then eventually woman everywhere else but within gender critical ideology. My trans experience doesn't map into what trans is now. But it is what it is.

Making it about me for a moment: I was clinically evaluated as a child. I began HRT as a teen. I had sex reassignment surgery in my 20s. The correspondence received by the government where I was born from my surgeon complied with the law of the time requiring that I was medically and socially the sex being requested on my documents. After that, my involvement with anything trans-related ended until very recently online. Very few people other than family and childhood friends know of my past. I am in my 50s now, proud of my life, I love and am loved by my family and have a large community of friends. My behaviour is not a demand. My life is not inaccurate.

I will continue as I am; as I have been. You can also wedge your idea of me into a definition of 'man' all you wish. The world will continue to group me as a 164cm 59kg woman.

Replying to previous posts;

1/I'm not force teaming. Every one of the groups I mentioned as parallels have been through a phase of being publicly othered by the dominant cultures in the past. Society is still globally evolving with varying levels of acceptance and integration of these groups.

2/I don't think trans women are arguing for access to anything. I've never argued for access to anywhere. I was pulled in to spaces by women/pushed out of spaces by men because of a lot of reasons and situations that no one here wants to hear about because they're apparently impossible for gender critical people to acknowledge.

It doesn’t matter how much extreme body modification you have chosen to have or when.

No male person is female at any time, with any process and with any document.

It is also irrelevant what label you apply to yourself. Your material reality is of a male person and never that of a female person. Just because some women ‘pull’ you into female single sex provisions also doesn’t give you the consent of any other female person to be there. If you continue to access any female single sex provision, you do so as a male person who is accessing a single sex provision that was never for you to access.

It is truly irrelevant how many female people ‘pulled’ you in. I am sure there has been one or some who did. Those female people did so without thought for any other female person’s needs. Consent from female people is not transferable to another female person. Therefore it truly is irrelevant if one or more female people said it was ok.

That you expect any person to use female language for you is a demand.

That you use female single sex provisions while you are a male person is a demand.

It is not merely ‘gender critical’ people who don’t agree you have changed sex, nor does material reality. Even in two hundred years time, material reality will understand you are a male person who expected society to act as if you are female but never were. Your expectation that people do this is a demand regardless of your wish for it not to be labelled so.

Your posts illustrate the situation very well though. Thank you for the honesty.

”The world will continue to group me as a 164cm 59kg woman.”

A portion of society may categorise you as a ‘woman’ but not the world. You have no control over any other person’s perception of you. Please don’t believe that no other person in the world will correctly identify your sex class because that would be a greatly inaccurate assumption.

Your height and weight is also irrelevant.

“Your height and weight is also irrelevant.”

Apologies, I didn’t finish this sentence as intended.

Your height and weight is also irrelevant as an indicator to whether you are a woman or a man.

Yes.

It will.

This has been explained multiple times why it is problematic and causes harm to women.

Gender critical definitions of 'sex categories being born into' have no mapping to my life.

This is bullshit. Yes sex is relevant to your life on a daily basis in terms of your health and how others respond to you.

The fact you may be unaware that people still treat you as a man who says he's a woman rather than a woman says a lot. The way it which you have demanded and think you are entitled is male. Any health care you have references your sex. You don't escape it. You just deny it.

Having surgery does not make you a woman. It makes you a man who has surgery. Taking hormones does not make you female. It makes you a male on drugs.

There's many many ways in which your life has continued to be set by your sex even after surgery and hormones and makes your life different to any woman who has ever lived.

You being in denial of this, does not stop it from being true.

You are still demanding and punching down on women and showing them zero respect.

I had a five hour surgery in the 90s. The only other 'extreme body modification' I have experienced would be called puberty.

I agree that no male person is female. I would argue it only matters within limited contexts and for other contexts the evil slippery 'gender' concept prevails. The primary attribution of sex involves sex chromosomes. However, as most people have absolutely no idea what anyone else's sex chromosomes are, gender is the manifestation of sex-based assumption. Social application of male and female is a little like a sliding scale. Gametes matter a great deal to a majority of people who wish to find a partner to procreate. Sex matters less to people who are sat in a restaurant. My own sex has no influence on how the other wives in my community would feel if I were to start spending a lot of time with their husbands. My gender has a whole lot to do with it. I know how my husband would feel and that has nothing to do with my own sex or gender. It is irrelevant what label I apply to myself.

Public places are collectively consented either through a rules structure or by implicit social convention. Implicit consent has been granted to people who 'fit in.' Civil liberties extend explicit consent to people who don't 'fit in.' The ability for every person to individually consent requirements for inclusion would be chaotic in the provision and maintenance of public-serving services and spaces. Gender critical groups are doing a pretty good job of modifying the provision and maintenance of public-serving service and spaces, though.

It would be silly to presume all people identify or believe anything about me or my life in any context. Everyone forms their own opinions about everyone else based on the beliefs they hold and the contexts of application. No one has any control over any other person's perception of them.

There are plenty of men my height and weight. I suspect they developed and continue to exhibit a male-typical bone structure and fat distribution. My estrogen-dominant puberty continued into estrogen and progesterone supported aging.

My 90kg, almost 30cm taller husband provides a much better example of a male. My stepson is as tall as his father and our daughter is almost 5 cm taller than me. I share my height and weight as a counter to the gender critical standard trans woman charicature.

Back to the original topic, based on the dynamics I've read about when other trans people are coming out to friends... I suspect the friend group will eventually be brought to a moment to decide which friend to support and which friend to expel. How the friend group feels is the only thing that matters to the group.

Ummm no. Try again. Without the ChatGPT input. When any of the other groups demanded recognition, what rights did they demand another group sacrifice? For example, trans people demand other give up their rights to single sex spaces. What rights did these other groups demand?

No.

This is
a) not all about you and what you think
b) it's a steaming load of bollocks
c) not what the law says

Thanks for illustrating the point about how women are fed up of being talked at and disrespected by transwomen.

“I had a five hour surgery in the 90s. The only other 'extreme body modification' I have experienced would be called puberty.”

I am not going to pry but any surgery which removes genitalia or creates body parts to resemble the opposite sex categories genitalia is indeed extreme body modification. So too is taking hormones found in large quantities of the opposite sex that is meant to change some body cues. For a male person, any process used to develop female body cues is an extreme body modification.

Again, you can quibble about the terminology, but this is an accurate description of any process used to create a cosmetic resemblance of the opposite sex for the purposes of an identity. Ie. an elective procedure that is cosmetic only.

”However, as most people have absolutely no idea what anyone else's sex chromosomes are, gender is the manifestation of sex-based assumption.”

People who declare that chomosomes are the only indicator of sex category ever needed would be mistaken.

The only way a human female can be categorised though is on whether they have a body that was formed around the production of large gametes, regardless of whether that production has or will ever happen. Most female person will know reliably that they are female from puberty. So again you have made yet another inaccurate generalisation.

“Social application of male and female is a little like a sliding scale. Gametes matter a great deal to a majority of people who wish to find a partner to procreate. Sex matters less to people who are sat in a restaurant.”

There is no ‘social sliding scale’ of applying find words male or female. There only ‘is’ male or female humans. And that definition of male and female is based on having a body formed around the production of one gamete or another.

Other than that, people of either sex can behave and think however they wish within the bounds of the law and safeguarding policy where sex is considered relevant by those decision makers and the group needing those polices and laws for protection.

In other words, it is irrelevant if a male person believes sex is important in a particular situation if female people consider sex important to be acknowledged in that situation.

Thank you though for the continued demonstration of the ignoring female people’s needs to centre your own.

And thank you for the demonstration on the topic of the thread. On how a male person will twist language to their own benefit to suit their philosophical belief about themselves when that belief does not reflect material reality.

If the sex categories of man and woman had never existed, trans people would have nothing to identify into.

And if the sex categories of man and woman had never existed, if female people hadn't been identified by our bodies since forever and mistreated because of that, we sure as hell would not have those desparately desirable woman-only spaces trans women so fixate on accessing.

Trans identies cannot stand alone. They are parasitic, relying on the general understanding of what a man or woman is to make the claim to be in a different way the same thing.

"Sex matters less to people who are sat in a restaurant.”

LOL.

Sex matters to the women in that restaurant in ways you clearly totally miss.

It matters when they pay for their meal, because on average they get paid less than the men.

It matters when they, statistically speaking, are the one who had to arrange childcare before they could go out that night.

It matters that they pay for a portion for a man's appetite even though they only need half or two thirds of that.

It matters when they plan their journey there and back to ensure safety, or weigh up what risks to take.

It matters when they tell someone who they are meeting and where they will be, just in case.

In a nutshell.

There is never any reciprocal interest in women's lives, women's stories, women's voices and experiences - which makes it clear there's no 'joining the girls' here, it's the superior kind of human arriving to use the resources as entitled to by male birthright and the magic word. All illustrated by the expectation demonstrated in every post that the women here exist only to provide the experience the man wants, and his unquestioning belief in his superiority and entitlement to make them provide it, including by stating a want for them to pretend to believe none of this is happening and that they absolutely think what he wants them to pretend to think.

Except the pretending isn't the real desired experience here in this particular case, obviously.

If we're asking silly questions, would it really hurt a man to not try and coercively control women into playing submission games to enable him in whatever it is he wishes to be enabled in? Join a BDSM club mate. The submissives in there will at least be consenting ones.

The primary attribution of sex involves sex chromosomes. However, as most people have absolutely no idea what anyone else's sex chromosomes are, gender is the manifestation of sex-based assumption. Social application of male and female is a little like a sliding scale. Gametes matter a great deal to a majority of people who wish to find a partner to procreate. Sex matters less to people who are sat in a restaurant. My own sex has no influence on how the other wives in my community would feel if I were to start spending a lot of time with their husbands. My gender has a whole lot to do with it. I know how my husband would feel and that has nothing to do with my own sex or gender. It is irrelevant what label I apply to myself.

Only a man would say this.

The entitlement and superiority always shows up doesn't it? The male socialisation as a child and the demand process and the expectation bar are ingrained, despite the surgery and drugs in adulthood.

Women just want to be left alone. They don't want confrontation in most cases. Mainly because it put them at risk and because the feel intimidated and lack the confidence to stand up to male demands.

The answer is no.

Sex is not a spectrum. It is not a socially decided thing based on society. There is no social consensus. Indeed polling firmly shows up the lack of social consensus and consent.

Pronouns matter hugely. Language matters hugely.

These efforts to control language are efforts to control women to their detriment.

'Public places are collectively consented either through a rules structure or by implicit social convention. Implicit consent has been granted to people who 'fit in.' Civil liberties extend explicit consent to people who don't 'fit in.' The ability for every person to individually consent requirements for inclusion would be chaotic in the provision and maintenance of public-serving services and spaces. Gender critical groups are doing a pretty good job of modifying the provision and maintenance of public-serving service and spaces, though'

And this is another indication that you don't understand the principles of safeguarding.

Neither do you understand that the majority of women do not want to share female single sex provisions with male people, even those with surgeries. There is no 'hierarchy' of rights that deprioritise those for female single sex provisions below those of 'gender identity'. As we have seen from the UK Supreme Court clarification of the EA2010, provisions declared to be for female people only (based on them having a body that was formed around the production of large gametes) are for female people only.

Would you like me to post Article 8 with the restrictions so you can refresh your memory?

'The ability for every person to individually consent requirements for inclusion would be chaotic in the provision and maintenance of public-serving services and spaces'.

It certainly did not used to be 'chaotic' to provide and maintain female single sex provisions. And it is not even now.

... unless it is the case that a male person cannot respect the needs of female people and chooses instead, to access any female single sex provision for his own use.

'It would be silly to presume all people identify or believe anything about me or my life in any context. Everyone forms their own opinions about everyone else based on the beliefs they hold and the contexts of application. No one has any control over any other person's perception of them.'

Excellent, then please stop making such inaccurate generalisations about how 'the world' sees you or treats you if you are a male person who believes that they are 'female' in any way.

'There are plenty of men my height and weight. I suspect they developed and continue to exhibit a male-typical bone structure and fat distribution. My estrogen-dominant puberty continued into estrogen and progesterone supported aging'

I see.

If a person has artificially had their natural puberty suppressed for identity purposes, this is indeed another example of extreme body modification for identity purposes.

And if you are 'male', you did not go through a 'estrogen-dominant puberty'. If you are male you went through a testosterone suppressed puberty where you chose to then take hormones that your body was never formed around producing in the quantities you chose to provide it. Another form of extreme body modification of identity purposes.

If you have a body that is female and for some reason your body did not produce the quantities of estrogen and progesterone needed for female puberty, this supplementation is medically required and would not be for extreme body modification at all.

Again, this is where accurate and precise language is important for communication.

Plus it is indeed another situation where sex does indeed matter, as do what gametes the body is formed around producing.

If you have a male body, an 'estrogen-dominant' puberty would not have grown ovaries, would not have grown the ova which started developing in your mother as a feotus, and would not have grown a uterus.

Sex is very relevant in whether you have a female body that can conceive and gestate another human being.

'our daughter is almost 5 cm taller than me.'

Gosh, yes! There are short male people and tall female people. What of it. Again, your height is of minor, if any, relevance to whether you are perceived as being male or female.

' I share my height and weight as a counter to the gender critical standard trans woman charicature.'

I believe that the majority of female people can reliably and correctly identify the sex of a male person regardless of weight and height. Your mentioning of it is again, irrelevant. A short male person is just a short male person.

A short male person who has used estrogen to change their body is just a short male person who has used estrogen to change their body. Would you like to describe how your hip alignment and q angles have changed? Would you also like to describe how your genes were overwritten to not produce other male body cues such as skull shape and formation?

Perhaps you can provide studies that show how these male body cues have been completely eliminated after a childhood of testosterone development and then an adulthood of estrogen intake?

onepostwonder has never been in a female single sex space and has no idea how women operate in such a space. onepostwonder presence destroys the single sex aspect of the space and makes it a mixed sex space. Women behave differently in such spaces. ‘Fawn’ is one of the instinctive responses to feeling threatened but also one many men who identify as trans seem to mistake as being thought ‘one of the girls’ rather than completely the opposite.

"... unless it is the case that a male person cannot respect the needs of female people and chooses instead, to access any female single sex provision for his own use."

Exactly.

When TRAs say "single sex spaces won't work because how can they be policed?" what they are really saying is "single sex spaces won't work because I will chose not to respect them" but dressing it up like it's some sort of objective flaw in the idea rather than simply their active choice to disrespect women.

Yep.

Not only that, but also a man who cannot conceive that the sex category of humans matters in so many ways to female people every single day.

Including for clear and accurate language. It also clearly illustrates how any male who demands that other people support their use of female language for themselves potentially causes harm to female people.

It also shows that safeguarding doesn't even cross their minds. Yet safeguarding is very much foundational to female people's lives.

Of course, it also never occurs to any male person either that the safeguarding boundaries they teach and model female children in their care are compromised and much lower than is healthy for any female child. Or any child for that matter.

When a child is taught that they cannot trust their own instinct that someone is a male person, this creates a safeguarding gap. Those children will have lower boundaries compared to other children because they have been taught that a male person can be a 'female' person.