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!

If a man says he is gay, that is a feeling. To feel attracted is to feel attracted. I'm with you there.

When a transsexual notices they're transsexual, they feel at odds with their sex characteristics they were born a bit like how a closeted lesbian might date men and think "this just doesn't feel right". In both cases they feel something is wrong with the status quo. For the lesbian she realises it's because she is attracted to women. For the transsexual they realise it's because their gender isn't the same as what they were born as. They feel more comfortable as the opposite sex.

It's actually really similar.

Ok.

Yes I agree that people should be allowed to choose their own names

If you can't see why it is relevant in an interaction with a man who expects me to address him as a woman, than you haven't understood anything posters shared in this thread.

If you are not here to read and understand, please consider whether you want to stay in this thread further.

I can assure you that I've made a note about your position with regards to my original question. I take it seriously, as it shows how he might feel about it (thought at least he hopefully wouldn't claim having women's experience).

While I agree on the level ideals, I'm afraid it would sound absolutely mocking.

Whose turn is it now? Alex-woman, have you played-man your turn yet?

We can’t all have what we want.
Just as humans can’t change sex.

That’s life …

My points pretty much you can have an opinion on whatever you want but it doesn't let you be an arse to someone else.

Somebody homophobic can say they don't believe gay marriage is real but it doesn't let them then go and tell a gay couple they're not "real" to their face.

If that's not something you can recognise, then I'm afraid you're the problem here.

"We can't all have what we want.
Just as marriage is between a man and a woman.

That's life"

Oh look, it's history repeating itself again!

It’s easy to edit someone’s post, shame that it’s impossible to edit one’s sex.

Someone upthread conflated 'transitioning' with immigrating and (presumably) seeking citizenship or at least to belong in a new community.

It's much closer to the Dolezal case, where Rachel Dolezal claimed to feel black from infancy. (I can understand how it might have come about, given her family history.) The fact of the matter though, is that she couldn't change race. Whether or not she was sincerely deluded will never be known.

Certainly, I've seen no reports of the black community supporting her in recent years.

Back in the twenty-tens, I taught boys who were heavily into rapping because - they told me - as working class Scots - they felt that they could identify with African Americans from Harlem. They admired them and felt that there were similarities in their lives.

At no point did they actually think that they were African Americans.

Tell that to my sex characteristics and endocrinology

I'm absolutely astounded- I really didn't think that trans identifying men would really actually genuinely believe they were women by some medical or other miracle.
You cannot change sex, however much you wish it were so. You need to accept it. Living differently may alleviate your dysphoria but it might be healthier to admit this to yourselves. And you can't convince people who are actually grounded in reality that this is in any way possible.

If 'ATW' and 'one post' can't accept this then they are grossly insulting women, negating the notion of the "sisterhood" which they so desperately claim to belong to.
It's quite disgusting
But they don't care

No, it's actually completely different.

To feel attracted is to be attracted. But to feel you're a different sex is not to be a different sex; it's to make a mistake, much like the person who feels he's cool or smart (but isn't).

One giveaway there is your talk of 'gender' in "... their gender isn't the same as ...". You really won't be able to make sense of that use of 'gender'. It genuinely is a non-starter, that idea of a gender as an undefined something intangible (like an immortal soul) that matches or not (how? - never explained) somehow with sex while being something other than sex.

Think about it. It'll be hard for you I know. To you it's important. But you are just making mistakes in how you think about sex and gender. Really. Just mistakes.

You don't own womanhood, sorry! It belongs to all women. Including transsexual women.

You are a man with cosmetic changes to your body. You are not a woman.

I don’t need to as you’ve already declared you’re trans. Can’t be trans unless you start life as the opposite sex. In your case, male.
People can’t change sex.

A mannequin can be modelled with male or female characteristics but it will always be just a replica.

I am thinking about it. Are you?

My sexuality and a straight woman feels pretty similar to how I feel my gender. I feel attracted to men because I just do, I feel like a woman because I just do. I can point to things that helped me work this out but at the end of the day they're still both things I feel and just... Know.

Oh yes we do!

👍

I'm a lot of things. Transsexual is if anything one of the more boring parts of who I am.

Being a woman has shaped me more than my transsexuality ever could.

Being transsexual has shaped you. It hasn’t made you a woman.

Transsexual women are men. Women own womanhood and all the words that are associated with it.

All women do, not you personally.
👍

Transsexual women are women. All women, no matter who they are own womanhood as a collective.

You are not in the woman category. You are a man

I was always a woman, transsexuality just helped the outside match the inside.