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!

Where do I say that? Oh no, I haven’t. Funny that.

Did you see a shadow yesterday?

That was yesterday.

Not at all. I believe gender critical people are a small collective of misguided individuals who share obsessive concerns that are not based in social reality. Feminists were always and remain feminists.

Do you swing it around like a light sabre?

But your definition of feminism means not being critical of gendered stereotypes?

Only on special occasions.

Will you be applying for a Groundhog Recognition Certificate?

Deja vu?

What a weird attempt at an insult.

No dear, that’s the gender ideologists. Have you tried drinking some water? That might help. Also vitamin D. Very important. #lifetips

Oh yes. Absolutely. Then I can be a groundhog every day.

Blah.

Blah.

I am right. All women are not womaning right.

2. Women saying no to men is a hate crime.

3. Women speaking for themselves are exclusionary and selfish.

5. Women and Feminism must be useful to men or they are worthless.

7. Women should always be grateful to men for everything.

8. Men are whatever men say they are and women are whatever men say they are.

9. Men always know the “real reasons” for everything women do and say.

11. Whatever women suffer from, it is worse when it happens to men.

14. Women have all the rights they need: The right to remain silent.

15. Men are the default human. Women are strange subhuman others.

16. Everyone owns and controls women’s bodies except the women themselves

I count ten.

As a PP said way way back, this thread is a prime example of what happens when there’s a T in the friendship group. Luckily, none of my friends believe in gender bollocks so it’s not something I’ll ever have to deal with.

If you were a woman, you’d understand…..

🙄

Though of course you cannot disassociate feminism from sex stereotypes as your only claim to ‘womanhood’ relies on those stereotypes.

Survey results don't count gender critical support. Survey results count opinion. Superficial surface-level reactions to simple questions. Options change. Gender critical beliefs are obsession-level concerns.

"Safeguarding does not and should not require knowledge of gametes."

This is another falsity.

Safeguarding does require the acknowledgement of which sexed body a person has. Access to public facilities that have been designated as female single sex, is based on a general public risk evaluation because it cannot be expected that any person can do a case by case risk evaluation in an instance in a public facility.

"Tying everything to status at conception is something only antiabortion campaigners do and serves no benefit to children."

This is another falsity and is a cognitive distortion based on catastrophising and a false comparison. It also doesn't really make logical sense. It is like someone is trying to throw every prejudice they can think of at feminists to discredit them. This claim is laughable though.

"Your beliefs on anything to do with trans people are only beliefs and do not impact reality."

Male people are not female people, this is material reality. Whereas you can keep repeating your subjective reality but repeating it doesn't make it the universal material reality supported by science.

That is neither an accurate description of gender critical beliefs or of feminist thought and theory.