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!

Yes. The logic cannot be anything but the fact that a male person's presence in a female single sex provision immediately makes that provision mixed sex.

This was made rather clear in the UK Supreme Court clarification about the EA2010.

Therefore logic cannot be anything but that a male person in that female single sex provision will be having a 'female' experience of that female single sex provision.

As a woman who has had numerous issues relating to hormones I find comments about hormones from a male deeply offensive.

The fact these males don't want to acknowledge just how deeply offensive some of the stuff they say and do is to women.

Coming onto a feminist section of mainly female forum and telling all the women there they are wrong and don't understand what sex is, is a particular highlight.

It's as good a display of incelism as a man coming her and quoting Andy Tate verbatim.

And to point out before any further discussion about safeguarding, safeguarding is not restricted to protection from sexual assault. It encompasses any harm that can be potentially caused to a female person from a male person's presence in a female single sex provision.

Plus, a short male person still has male physical advantage which includes skeletal leverage, muscular strength etc. This also includes grip strength and punch power which has been shown to be much higher on average to a female on average. These are unchanged with testosterone suppression.

However, safeguarding is not solely about reducing physical harm risk either.

Women have a right to privacy and dignity and being gender critical is recognised as being acceptable in a democratic UK

This means if they believe a transwoman is male they should not be forced to share facilities because they are no longer single sex.

There is no right to validation in law because it can only be achieved by the suppression of others.

I think we have had a great demonstration of how male people justify their demands and how they defend their personal decisions.

Imagine if we changed all the female language in the relevant posts to reflect the material reality of the situation being described. It would really become very clear how deep the lack of respect for female people's needs is with some male people.

Language is a hugely important tool to convince and emotionally manipulate others into supporting, or even just acting as if they support, a philosophical belief and its manifested subjective reality which does not reflect material reality.

Yep.

I must say a real time demonstration of what we were discussing previously is fabulous.

It shows up how this male didn't read a single word nor respect any of our lived experiences of how language matters and impacts up.

It was a firm trampling and attempt to try and shut down this identifing of how it oppresses us.

Again I thank our friend for their welcome contribution to this thread.

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.

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
I'm begging of you, please don't take my man
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
Please don't take him just because you can

Ok. Thanks to onepostwonder for demonstration.

1. if you don't understand influence of sex on daily life of people, you are male. Male experience is the default and normal one, the one where sex doesn't have any influence, so it feels that only gender does.

2)I expect the current development is making life harder for you as well. With the rapid influx of trans identifying people in different ages, stages and vocality, the previous status - which was a kind of silent "don't be obtuse and we will look away" can't continue.

3)we are talking about middle aged male here, so your experience is of limited applicability.

Please, decide, whether you want to continue in this thread.
I was happy that it kept civil and on point for a long time.
I can't stop you, but I can assure you, that your points to my question were notified - you don't see importance of sex and you expect that the group will have to expell someone. I take it seriously, because we have majority of males, who might see similarly about sex vs gender question, so I might need to comment on that.

This supposed point is like those videos we see of male people who present in what they believe is stereotypical female ways, that say ‘do you really want me in the male toilet with your husband’?

It relies on those ‘husbands’ not registering that there is another male person in their presence. Which is unlikely. It then supposes those female person’s husbands are bisexual.

There is a lot of fallacious thinking going into points such as that one. It shows male entitlement though too.

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 husband doesn't dictate who I spend time with and whom I friends with because he trusts me and my judgement.

It's a thoroughly unhealthy and sexist relationship where a husband starts being bothered about the company his wife keeps.

It's fascinating that the entire premise of this statement comes from the idea that women are owned by the husbands and the husbands are responsible for the protection of their wives.

In this narrative women have no autonomy of their own. They are secondary to the actions of the husband and the transwoman.

Once again language use reveals far more about what the writer thinks of women and reveals how they perceive power dynamics.

Women of course notice this because they are impacted by this and live this on a daily basis. I also note how women are framed as support humans to both groups of males.

I’d just avoid all interactions with him. I find it all massively insulting.

Well, I think this thread will have been very useful for the OP.

It has certainly demonstrated what Keffles let slip: “Being a trans woman isn't about trying to imitate women. It's about trying to be better than women.”

It is very much a male thing.

It was also quite amusing to come back to this thread to find that my comment - which named no one - that some people have an over inflated idea of their own self importance (using a common British phrase that includes the word arse) has been deleted. 😆

Was it the use of arse that offended?

@FourSevenTwo I couldn't lie on a regular basis about something I felt so strongly about. I would be stressed before the meet-ups and angry during them. It is more than just a political topic to me. It is an assault on me as a woman.

I would continue to use male language for him, though only when the alternative of not communicating with him was impossible. I would then see where that led with him personally and with the group as a whole.

However, that is my personality. You need to go with whatever arrangement works best for you.

Yes, it was very interesting thread.

I was surprised how fast the deletions were here. I've only seen this before with some seriously racist stuff.
At the same time, I am thankful to MN, that we were able to discuss so many things here even with the kind surveillance holding us to the highest standards of internet discussion.

Oh dear.

“Therefore logic cannot be anything but that a male person in that female single sex provision will be having a 'female' experience of that female single sex provision.”

should be

Therefore logic cannot be anything but that a male person in that female single sex provision will not be having a 'female' experience of that female single sex provision.

Emotional vampires who need constant validation are not great friends regardless of how they identify.

There are limits to how much you can support someone like this and it's healthy to know when it gets to much.

If someone needs constant validation what they need is professional support and help not everyone continuing to bend over backwards to accommodation this.

Fwiw I think men have a much lower tolerance of emotional vampires and I suspect there are implications to this.

Note how GC lesbians have not only come off worst in terms of politics but also they have been most actively targeted as 'the enemy' by TRAs.

The 'cotton ceiling' was something that shocked me when I first read about it.

This.

It's one of the reasons why transgender ideology is so harmful to children, because it encourages a very unhealthy view of how they should interact and expect to interact with others. It will limit their friendships because it demands compliance and does not demonstrate reciprocity. The people of whom pronouns and lying is demanded are never seen as full human beings in their own right.

You can't be friends with people who don't see you as a full human being.

Gametes matter a great deal to a majority of people who wish to find a partner to procreate.

This is a particularly male perspective. The idea that how humans procreate only matters when they actually wish to procreate. Not every single month from puberty, not every single time sexual intercourse, wanted or unwanted, is likely. Not a thought about contraception and the impact of the various options. No consideration of pregnancy and the impact of that, or menopause.

Clearly our homosexual male visitor does not need to consider such matters. Though I fear exploiting vulnerable women to purchase and traffic their baby may fall into ‘find a partner to procreate’.