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!

Wishful thinking from an ideology doomed to die out with time. Young people are overwhelmingly socially progressive.

We know that transsexual people are who they say there are. It's not a big thing for us, we grew up around transsexual kids in school and know that transsexuals are normal people. Not the big bad wolf all of you got radicalised into believing by the telegraph and the daily mail.

I mean we made the words up and defined what they mean. I don't think nature made that.

Unless you believe a dictionary grew up out of the ground one day?

Google is free! I'm not your search engine. I'm not doing a university research report for an anonymous online message forum.

Polls that add in the context of whether a person knows or is related to a trans person hugely shifts the results in a positive majority supportive position.

And given that most young people at least know a trans person, it's not too surprising that more realise that TERFs have been lying all along.

There’s a greater chance that a dictionary grew up out of the ground one day than a Man can become a Woman.

It has nothing to do with imaginary 'big bad wolfs' it has to do with some women needing spaces where men are not. All you need to do is tolerate that there are other people apart from you with needs, and that there needs to be room and access for all.

You need to do some actual listening to women, it's discussed here all over MN all the time, women's needs change over time in their lives . What a naive youngster thinks they're fine with in their teens and at uni is very likely not going to be the case later on in their lives. Not for women who have been assaulted and abused, not for women who have been harassed, men are not going to stop doing this or creating women who need single sex provisions for access because they can't and won't undress in a space with a man. And what the man says is important to him is not relevant because women's lives don't revolve around men. This won't work for some women who have been through hard childbirth and hospital experiences, women who have children, women who have disabilities, and it won't work for the many women of different faiths and cultures who have their own diversity issues. Edited to add a group I forgot: the women mature and life experienced enough to understand boundary issues, healthy relationships and what they look like, and abusive relationships, who will not put others above their own needs or accept a non consensual submission of their needs to a man who thinks he is more important. There will be a never ending succession of women who need single sex spaces. No woman sadly is ever more than an hour away from a bad experience that leaves her only able to access single sex spaces.

Just deal with it. Some women need single sex spaces, and those spaces are not for you. You cannot have everything all the time, you have to share the planet with other people who have the same rights that you do. Stop with the imaginary rants and do some thinking for pete's sake.

Seems we need to start properly distinguishing gender and gender feelings.

Trans identified males aren't really of women's gender- not in the original sociology sense. Growing in gendered society is what happens to female people without asking us whether we identify ourselves into it or not. No male share this experience.
The exhibition we can see here just proves that having a feeling of gender identity doesn't make one a woman.

Arguably transsexual women were never men in the first place. Just women hiding who we are. Especially for those if us who transitioned as minors so never actually were men in the first place!

So. Just misinformation. Thank you for confirming that.

If there was even any truth to male skeletons changing to become female skeletons, the point would be well discussed in public coverage for sports. It isn’t. There are groups of already puberty blocked male people out there who could be studied right now.

Its more 'colonists dont get to redefine the words native people...'

Oh trust me I've grown up in a gendered society alright. I've had old men trying to harass me or message me when I was a teenager, faced sexual harassment in the workplace, etc.

Nobody stopped to check if I was a transsexual first. So don't tell me I don't know what sexism and misogyny is.

And apparently there is nothing ideological about male people declaring they are female…

Wishful thinking from an ideology doomed to die out with time….

It certainly will die out because to be able to continue humanity will necessitate real women being involved.

As a woman who has been harassed, abused, drugged and raped I agree men will never stop being men.

Lying about what exactly? That human beings cannot change sex?

I know exactly what proof I would need to demonstrate that human beings could actually change sex. It hasn't happened in the entire history of mammals (which of course includes humans). So I'm not lying when I say that human beings cannot change sex.

To the male interlopers: No. Thank you.

Yeah sure and then everyone would listen! Like how everyone listens to how HRT decreases muscle mass in transsexual women.

We barely get studies to cover our actual healthcare you think we're gonna spend loads on a study you'll ignore in the end anyway?

Annnnnnnnnnnnd again it's just all about you. Nothing about women is relevant but what you can use for yourself.

Bored now. And disgusted. Men indeed never stop being men.

I've faced sexual assault, stalking, rape threats, death threats, sexual harassment and social much more. None of that was because I'm transsexual, it was because I'm a woman. Men took advantage of me, you think that doesn't change someone?

You don't get to sit here and choose which women are worthy of safety and dignity.

Redirected, reframed and the sacred gender critical mythology remains pure and undisturbed.

What the fuck are you on about? What 'mythology'?

Not every woman hates transsexuals.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-33152596

https://www.theroot.com/rachel-dolezal-10-years-later-what-happened-to-the-wo-2000073814/slides/11

“I acknowledge I was born biologically white, to white parents,” she told the hosts of “The Real.” Then she added, “But I identify as Black.”

I've had old men trying to harass me or message me when I was a teenager, faced sexual harassment in the workplace, etc.

Some men are more than happy to sexually harass other men and boys. Some especially like to harass men and boys who are effeminate. Doesn't make their victims women. And you being a woman wouldn't have made you being harassed feel any better. Being sexually harassed doesn't make make any man more like a woman.

Arguably transsexual women were never men in the first place. Just women hiding who we are. Especially for those if us who transitioned as minors so never actually were men in the first place!

"Arguably"? Well then, make your argument about how a boy can "transition" to grow up to be a woman instead of a man. I'm listening.