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!

You’re right, I do tend to forget all that. Probably because whenever I point out that men can’t be women, any man who believes himself to be a woman literally ceases to exist, so I don’t have to listen to his tedious bollocks any more.

Using the process myself is a point I hadn’t considered….

Actual women don’t need to try to convince strangers on the internet that we are women.

If only!

This is a good reminder for any people who have not seen these videos before. They are good videos for several of the issues that we have been discussing.

'isn't it just kind?' - about linguistic disruptions and a particularly a good point about children

https://x.com/KnownHeretic/status/2014565139341836724?s=20

here she uses someone's video as an example

https://x.com/KnownHeretic/status/2016359954098364468?s=20

picking apart the emotional manipulation

https://x.com/KnownHeretic/status/2006188958586380420?s=20

and here is the one that gives it more clarity

https://x.com/KnownHeretic/status/2002449600146530366?s=20

This one is a vid about people not knowing their sex if they have not been 'tested'.

https://x.com/KnownHeretic/status/2016357787752923290?s=20

And as an example, there are several male people very much in the public eye that have been on puberty blockers before taking estrogen. These male people have not lost their male body cues. It is a fallacious piece of misinformation that estrogen reconfigures male skeletons and disguises all male body cues.

I truly suspect that those male people who spread this misinformation think 'that human has breast development, therefore they must be female' and don't think any further. The thing is, they also believe that all other male people also think as misogynistically as they do. Hence we see the videos as I mentioned before where young male people video their statements about 'women, why do you want me to use the men's toilet with your husbands when I look like this!'.

When really all they prove is exactly why they should not be in any female single sex space.

He’s only doing it for attention so I’d ignore him as far as possible.

This is another way male people misuse the language female people need and they show their ignorance of female body processes while doing so.

'it was time for the menopause'

No. No male person ever menstruates. Therefore there is no male person who is going through 'menopause'. There are a few specific words for a person who claims to have a female body process that they simply will never have despite making claims or eluding to having because they are male.

It is also completely irrelevant to then mention 'cortisol and insulin' as if that was some kind of clever gotcha. It really is not clever in anyway. Not even as an attempt to shame a woman pointing out the issues that goes with a male person making such a claim.

This was another statement claiming a female body process that is simply not possible and led to the 'puberty is puberty' misinformed statement.

"My reality is so heretical and impossible to allow to gender criticals that you have to invent scenarios where I do not exist. Someone started to talk about male advantage and their upperbody strength. My puberty organized its development around the assumption I'd produced large gametes. But you must fold me into the only allowable trans woman charicature."

I am actually quite concerned that a male person genuinely believes statements such as this because I wonder where they got this information. If it is from any medical practitioner, that clinician should be held accountable.

However, again notice the victim statement claiming that women who point out the issues with male people who make false and misinformed statements about female body processes being impossible in a male body making the male person the victim. This can potentially be an act of DARVO and a means to distract others and stop them making similar points.

Male people using female language make those terms meaningless. This is because those male people using those female language terms simply invented alternative definitions that render the terms meaningless.

No - 'female puberty' is not the side effects of a male person taking estrogen.
No - 'menopause' is not when male people stop taking estrogen.

And yet, women pointing out just how misogynistic this fuckwittery is are apparently the issue. They are making a male person feel that they talking about impossible things.... while that male person is talking about impossible things.

Women are again cast in the support role to keep a male person comfortable. One of the major sources of this support is language.

Oh, and onepost, if you would like to discuss exactly why I believe that it is misogynistic to use female language, including language about female specific body processes, when a male person can never have those female body processes yet claims the terms to describe their personal situation, let's have it.

I am sure that there are enough articulate women on this thread who will give great insight as to why it is an act of misogyny, even if it was unintended.

If you need to also understand why women have gained knowledge about male sports advantage, including male strength - even from weakened by medication male people, perhaps you should have a look at the sports studies. I recommend reading twitter contributions also from Dr Emma Hilton and other experts in this field. Even Harper, a male person who has a gender identity, did a systematic review which ended up with the same conclusions as other studies.

I am glad you arrived on the thread. Maybe this is a good opportunity for you to have clear and accurate discussions about facts, science and biology.

Its just an incel type of thinking.

"I must be right, because if I'm not right I don't get my own way and I have political invisibility and no status in society."

Meanwhile women are used to being completely fucking invisible to society and realise this is part of the female experience.

I would argue that this 'ceasing to exist' bollocks isn't about material or existential existance. Its about political visibility and power and they really really do not want to be treated like women when it comes to that. Ceasing to exist in terms of political relevance is what they really can not deal with. They do not seek to INCREASE women's political power and influence though. They've actively sought to work against women's political power on a large number of fronts.

They don't want to give up the power of being a man when it comes to it. They want 'all the good bits' of what they percieve being a woman is, but none of the responsibility and certainly not the lesser status within political relevancy.

"They don't want to give up the power of being a man when it comes to it. They want 'all the good bits' of what they perceive being a woman is, but none of the responsibility and certainly not the lesser status within political relevancy."

Hear, hear.

Hence the need to control how women describe not only themselves, but the male people who claim to be them.

Here is a male person who is very considerate to the men using the toilets. … he didn’t want the men to feel uncomfortable with him applying make up on his ‘feminine’ days with his ‘huge breasts’.

You can’t make this up.

x.com/gaynotqueer1/status/2017689843837637064?s=46

We see these males as claiming female solidarity.
"I go through the menopause too"
"I experience sexual harassment too"
Etc etc.
Also see the comment about supporting abortion rights.
It is actively trying to harness female solidarity as a force to weaponise it for male interests.

When asked to support women in terms of enabling the recognition of biological and physical barriers in all sorts of situations it suddenly "isn't my personal responsibility".

Its a 'this doesn't benefit directly or indirectly and may draw attention to the fact that my use of hormones isn't scientifically proven and show up my lack of knowledge and awareness" so I don't give a fuck.

Women don't get to say "your gender identity crisis isn't my personal responsibility and problem to solve". For this we are villified, smeared, targetted, abused with threats of violence or by social and economy punishment.

Women are told they must ALWAYS display female solidarity to male 'women' even if it might harm them to do so. We must be educated and made aware of every single tiny issue affecting transwomen and support them without question. We are not allowed to be 'selfish' (another language twisting) as we are framed - or in plain language we are not allowed to protect our own personal interests as females from harm, if the benefiary of this happens is a male transwoman.

Its a stark use of where the boundary creating the force teaming starts and ends.

This type of transwoman does not give a fuck about women. They only care about transwomen. Therefore by default and definition, it is a form of men's rights activism.

I love how he gives consideration to making the men feel uncomfortable and then his thinking stops and doesn't manage to also apply the same to women.

Men are worthy of consideration. Women are not.

And that is even without seeing the number of male people who say they are women who make statements about 'being denied the opportunity to experience abortion'. ...

The behaviour of male people who claim to have female body processes and those who talk about being denied these female body processes is part of the same behaviour.

Males joining groups such as those dedicated to breastfeeding and stillbirth is precisely about removing the political power of women whilst simultaneously claiming solidarity with women (and potentially getting a power trip and sexual kick out of it) and getting validation for doing so.

The whole point is they have no business being there but which to control the narrative and language for their own agenda NOT to support the interests of women.

Its is about destroying women's rights and power.

Yet somehow we are the ones who are 'anti-trans'. We are not allowed to talk about how these males carrying out these actions are profoundly anti-woman.

It all crumbles when accurate and precise language is used, doesn't it?

They use language to manipulate, yet language also exposes when it is correctly used.

Which cycles around to the power struggle over the language that is being used. And the degree of emotional manipulation that happens to prop up the use of demanded language.

Including the manipulation of using softer language to disguise the issues or make them more comfortable.

I do hope the OP has worked out how they are going to approach their situation.

He acknowledges that he's "a big guy" so men wouldn't want to "try" anything with him, but doesn't even spare a single thought for how scared women must feel about him pushing his considerable male bulk into our spaces. Women are just background objects...non-playable characters, nothing more. The narcissism of this modern trans movement (which is nothing more than a men's rights movement with sloppily applied lipstick and a wig), blows my mind every single time, it truly does.

But but… he has breasts!!

And correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't "Kolya" a man's name as well?

Yes.

ALL of it.

I remember having a conversation very early on with a (male) friend trying to work it all out. It must have been about 2008 before we had the same emotional pressure of thinking.

He asked me about "well if he is a man who becomes a woman does that make you a lesbian? But he's not homosexual! Or does he fancy men? Is he then straight! Oh wait, what happens if he dates a transwoman? Oh my head hurts! I don't know, its too complicated for me".

It was a bit of a lightbulb moment for me, because it highlights how people didn't want to question it, unpick it and they definitely didn't want to challenge it. They just don't care enough because it didn't affect them enough. They really don't want to think about it.

Its a conversation which has stuck with me. We were in a pub somewhere with another couple.

In a live and let live world this is fine, until the point it DOES effect you. The language definitely makes it much more difficult to recognise what is happening and why.

slaps forehead How could I have been so foolish?! You're absolutely right, I totally forgot that "puberty is puberty" after all. My bad!

When male people show women how they fetishise female body processes, we have an obligation to believe what they show us.

Even if they, personally, don't understand what they are showing the female people of the world.

The arsehole is actually using a male name when in his 'female' persona. Never in my life have I met a female Kolya. I've known a few men by that name, however.

It is indeed. It's a diminutive of Nikolai. [Source: I have a degree in Russian.]

https://x.com/DefiantLs/status/2017995105186230279?s=20

More on language. This time from a young woman, who we are constantly told is more likely to accept these language demands. This one most certainly has clarity of thought about how 'inclusive' language has become.

Good to see young women speaking out.