Friend shocks me by suddenly saying he's female. How to handle this?

[MiffedatMP]

A month ago a male co-researcher and friend I have known for 10 years, "came out as trans" by posting a couple of pics of himself on FB wearing eyeliner and studs in his newly pierced ears, and by changing his pronouns to he/she and saying he is a "trans female".

Just four weeks previously we spent the whole afternoon together and he did not breathe a word about this. He is 45, tall, broad-shouldered, slim-hipped and has angular, very masculine facial features. He looked and acted exactly the same as I have always known him: completely male in looks, speech, mannerisms, dress, etc. Therefore his announcement has come as a complete shock and, to be honest, at first I thought he was playing a prank.

Later this year we are supposed to begin a joint project which entails working closely together for months and I just don't know how to handle the situation. I've been wondering how long I can avoid ever referring to him by any pronoun - easy when it's just the two of us but the moment I have to refer to him as "he" or "her" to another person I am going to have to make a choice. I'm already worrying about this eventuality because it is bound to happen. Also on the project itself... there may be some wording which refers to him by a pronoun and again, I have to make a choice. I don't see how I can get out of this awkward situation. If I refer to him as "she" then I am sort of announcing that I am going along with this nonsense, and if I call him "he" then obviously this is going to cause massive fall out between us. He might storm out and the project abandoned, possibly after many weeks of work.

Even if I can manage to avoid the pronoun thing, how can I stay silent or dodge the subject if he looks me right in the eye and tells me he's now female? He hasn't yet changed his name but if he does I just don't think I can bring myself to call him by a female name.

I thought the easiest thing would be to just cancel the project, but that would make it look like I cancelled "just because he's trans", making me look like the baddie, losing his friendship forever and risking him smearing my good name around our small town, among our many mutual acquaintances, with goodness knows what social/business/friendship repercussions. Ditto if I replace him with someone else - I'd have to give him a reason, which, again, will get me into some kind of trouble, name-called, cancelled, hated because there are quite a few punitive activists where I live.

I understand now why people go along with it - because the alternative is life-changing, possibly life-ruining.

I just really, really wish he hadn't done this because it's made things so awkward.

What would you do?

How do we tell with our eyes and ears? Many trans women pass very well. Many women are quite butch. What happens if you suspect someone? What do you do? What happens if you are wrong?
Why do we need to personally benefit to do the right thing by someone?

I agree, Mmm. I don't believe this poster is arguing in good faith.

Singled sex toilets make no difference = dismissal of a century-old and increasingly global standard, thousands of campaigns and hundreds of charities

Mixed-sex prisons are fine = dismissal of the Geneva Convention, no less

The "maternity service example" not "making sense" = dismissal of the actual systems used, globally, to anticipate and allocate sufficient provision

I mean, I'd be fascinated to see all this actually argued - broken down, justified, supported - as opposed to merely asserted.

But I know why it's not being.

OP, I feel for you. I think it would be best for your sanity and stress levels if you treated it like any other sad situation where your prospective colleague had had some sort of breakdown and was unable to take on the project.

Gender ideology either attracts or makes narcissists who seem to think they are the only person that counts in the world. Then sadly, many people around them reinforce that delusion for varying reasons - often just to feel virtuous.

If he is heading off on his journey to ‘find himself as a woman’ which will be fruitless and never ending (as he is not and never will be a woman), then he is likely to be too distracted to give his best contribution to the project.

Another loss to gender ideology but hopefully a lucky escape for you.

Yes. Unless you have some way of seeing their chromosomes.

I also think that if @LittleMyLabyrinth is just posting in ignorance but with good faith then rather than continue to derail OP's thread, she could go and read all about it on other threads.

Perhaps starting with the 'break it down for me' thread

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me?reply=74979263

It's easy for us to forget sometimes that many people don't get it because they have never really thought about it before. We all peaked at some point.

Many trans women pass very well.

They really really don’t. Even the the really high profile ones who have chemically stopped their puberty or had lots of hormones and surgery still stick like a sore thumb.

You just can’t disguise a male skeleton or that maleness that people born male have.

That’s up toTIMs isn’t it. Male on male violence not women’s problem.

For centuries we just relied on gender expression, exactly the same as we do now. Clothes, hair, etc. Which is perfectly fine for casual societal interaction.
I never said trans women were being killed in bathrooms at an alarming rate, I said they were historically murdered by men at an alarming rate, so I understand their caution, the same as I understand yours. If they are dressed or look feminine that is enough for the wrong man to target them, as homophobic men have for decades. Personally I think we should just swerve the issue and have separate gender neutral toilets, but people seem to have a problem with that too.

How do we tell with our eyes and ears? Many trans women pass very well. Many women are quite butch. What happens if you suspect someone? What do you do? What happens if you are wrong?

Suspect someone of what?

re “look like a man but could be a woman”. I did not mean a transman.

I meant, like that transwoman called Alex

A psychotherapist and photographer who started living as a woman while keeping her beard says she wants to "widen the bandwidth of gender".
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/i-want-widen-bandwidth-gender-9686747

It's not. It's society's job to protect everyone

So you could use that argument for transwomen couldn’t you? Why do they need to benefit todo the right thing? So if no one can tell their sex, how do TIM know they’re not male?

So you work on protecting TIM from men and we’ll work on protecting women from all men. Including those claiming to be women. Like a job share if you will.

Not by your argument. You expect them to use a facility where they may be uncomfortable or unsafe, at least by the logic used here.

Except pronouns arent "sex based" theyre a laulnguage constuct based on a gender construct.

If she/her is too difficult use they/them the way you would if you were unsure of someones sex or gender

All toilets are gender neutral. They’re just single sex.

So men are both at threat from other men in the mens but not at threat from other men in the ladies, except they are because men will ignore the sign and go in there anyway, so we should just let all men in and those men will only attack women but they can't tell which ones are the women because no one can tell someone's sex by looking at them.

Utter bollocks.

YOU want women to use a facility where they may be uncomfortable or unsafe because YOU want to allow men into female only spaces.

Have they tried reframing their trauma?

But didn’t you say men would just go into the women’s if they wanted to attack women? So why would TIM be any safer in the women’s then?

I mean,

Signage protects nobody.

Well, heck. That's a bit embarrassing for me. I'd always thought signs were automated to rise up, knives bursting from the sides like a Wolverine macuahuitl, always ready to attack on the merest scent of a wrong chromosome.

Oops.

Better get rid of speed limits, warnings about deep quarries, reminders not to cheat in exams, the umbrella roadwork man...

Anyway, this is silly now (the above included - I hate collapsing into sarcasm, and am slightly sorry for it, not least as I recognise you're being polite overall, Little, and this is appreciated, but hope you'll excuse me as 1) I'm running out of ways to get through and 2) I really did want to use the word macuahuitl sometime 😁).

I'm off, wishing you all the best.

@LittleMyLabyrinth you also said TIF would be in danger in male prisons, but if no one can know anyone’s sex, how would the men know they were TIF were not male?

I don't see why it's such a problem. Just get on with the work, it's not about his gender.

If you don't like switching pronouns just call him by his name all the time and don't use any. And if that seems stilted and artificial, well it's not your fault is it.

Macuahuitl is indeed a word worth using. And having had to look it up, I now know what one is.

It will become increasingly obvious to this man that pronouns are being avoided, and if he goes down the familiar path, his gender identity will become more and more important to him. Perhaps the most important thing.

If OP monetises this product, that will involve correspondence and conversations with third parties. Having watched a number of tribunals where the whole point of the legal argument is that their male client is now a woman, and listening to the barristers end up misgendering their own client, I suspect she will be unable to avoid missteps.