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!

Errrr ummmmm I don’t know how to break this to you, but you’re wrong. Listen to women. We’re the experts in womanhood.

Then, you would be wrong and have got a prejudiced view of feminists who support female single sex provisions remaining female only.

The first time I saw this level of mansplaining was on a particular board in an SF forum more than 20 years ago. It was the first time that I'd seen 'cis' used.

The bloke concerned explained what he meant by the term and told us in detail about his tragic life. He'd undergone surgery to the extent that he completely 'passed' to the extent that he'd been raped by a man who completely believed that the poster was a woman . (I notice that I often see men using this as 'proof of womanhood' on discussion groups for some reason.)

He got a great deal of sympathy. It got to the stage that all threads seemed to be about him.

One day, he decided to post a pic of himself - I genuinely can't remember what reason he gave. To this day, I cannot understand why he thought he 'passed'. I guess he'd said it so many times that he believed himself.

"I'm a woman due to my sex dysphoria (a medical condition) and my transition."

No. You are not.

Male people having sex dysphoria and making extreme body modifications is not a pathway to being a female person. It is misogynistic to suggest that it is.

I've never had to speak those words to another person. I've typed a lot about being a woman. I don't have a GRC. I don't need one as I wasn't born in the UK and i'd lived in two countries before where my birth and life documentation was long settled.

I am groundhog hear me roar.

ffs.

I am the gatekeeper. My name is Zuul.

Blimey....

this is your friend. Presumably your friendship group welcomes her and loves her

how much will it kill you to refer to her using female pronouns?

as much as concerns about women’s rights are there, your friend is not the one harming women, is she? - likely she just wants to exist

you are, imo, wrong to see her as anything other than your friend who is on a journey of acceptance which is not easy. See past your personal beliefs

I grew up around bigoted church people - you sound a lot like ‘love the sinner, hate the sin’ directed at gay boys 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️.

"It only counts in situations where people are terrified to say what they actually think".

You have 40 pages of reading to do.

😅 fair

I am very concerned that a person in a parenting role doesn't understand safeguarding principles, consent nor understand the boundaries female people. have and need.

The irony is. I would have used the pronouns someone wanted me to. Until I got peaked by some of the trans allies.

No. The word is no.

You still don't get it.

The issue isn't that we care about your sex and the impact of that, we care about our sex and the impact of that on our lives.

The only reason your real sex as a trans "woman" is on our radar at all is that you as a male person want to redefine what it is to be female to suit your own self image, and that obviously has a significant effect on the public, social, cultural and legal recognition of what you quite rightly note is about 50% of the population.

Recognition of our sex is significant to the recognition of what it is to be us in this society, certainly far more relevant to us than this weird undefined "gender" you want to use instead that explicitly secluded most of the actually significant factors and entirely excludes the psychological impact. Your challenges, rights and needs as a "woman" may not be linked to your sex, but as female people ours are.

So honestly, just stop redefining us and we'll be golden.

It's not my definition. Most feminists do not share the obsessions of self-identified gender critical people.

I suggest you read this entire thread. Perhaps you will find it enlightening.

Language is very important to remain accurate and clear. This entire thread is a great demonstration as to why.

It's eye-opening stuff.

You might see why not everyone wants to go along with it after this car crash.

I take my vitamin D religiously. As if the bottle is saving my life.

You've missed all the discussion about the difficulties inherent in the particular language, I think?

Are those feminists in the room with you now?

I am not gender critical.

I just don’t want men in women’s single sex spaces thanks.

maybe that means I am.

I would - and have - used whatever pronouns someone wanted.

because be kind. What harm etc.

but I don’t want a man in the space where I discuss my rape.

I don’t want a man in the changing room where I’m getting changed.

I don’t want a man on the other side of a cubicle.

fine, fine, I responded to the op, will read all her posts at least

The answer is still no.

I was going to argue about whether GC people are really feminists, but i see it's a race against time.

So I'll just say: it's not an oppressive culturally contingent gender norm to think that being a woman includes having ovaries