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?

Have you felt equally sorry for the women forced to share with changing rooms with men performing female stereotypes? Or the female rape survivor told that no she couldn't have a support group that was only for actual women? Or the women bullied out if their jobs because they refused to lie and say men can be women?

or is it only men performing their stereotyped idea of what womanhood that get your sympathy?

oh and transness is not about sexuality which is why straight TW claim to lesbians so they can have sex with women

@MiffedatMP you are the problem here. I hope your friend realises she can't work with you and move on.

All this nonsense about it being a fetish blah blah blah. More danger from the overly masculine, heterosexual men sitting on a train!

Next you'll turn against gay people, then religions different to you, then people of colour, then disabled people.

There are about two options here:

• Your ex friend declines to work with you further because of your transphobia

• You get to grips with accepting she's a trans woman. You can make the odd slip up with pronouns and names because nobody is perfect and it takes a little while to alter our internal mapping. But you need to let go of the thinking that you understand her life experience better than she does or even that you need to understand at all.

Often trans people describe their pre transition presentation as putting on a performance. Trans women may appear to have been the stereotypical manliest of men having spent ages trying to suppress their gender dysphoria.

If you can tolerate trying to use the correct pronouns for her and know not to out her as trans to others who don't know, you could learn a lot from proximity to her as you work together. Transphobia rarely survives contact with real live trans people.

How can you be dismissive of your friends feelings and potentially sack him for bigoted reasons without any repercussions?!?!

Whats all this "going along with this nonsense" talk? They dont need your approval. Its not about you.

And if youre nasty to your friend of 10 years because you disagree a with choice that has no impact on you, causing employment repercussions you deserve all the consequences you get. This isnt about you.

You dont have to like this choice, you dont have to approve, you dont have to agree with transitioning - but you dont terrorise someone because you dont like their choice about their life and gender expression.

Nonsense - TW are men, they are no more and importantly no less of a danger than any other man

I’d be tempted to just use his name, I once heard Steve Wright talking about Eddie Izzard and not once did he use a pronoun, it was really well done. And if he challenges you at all, you can just offer grey rock responses.
”Ok” “That’s fine, and about this work thing…”

why should you miss out on the potential income because he’s suddenly become evangelical?

lol I see this milkshake is bringing all the visitors to the yard

i assume the signal has gone out on Reddit

I imagine they would say the same to you.

I do actually feel sorry for him because he seems to have lost his way in life, and ended up falling into this as a way to cope with the heavy stress he's been under lately.
Could you be any more patronising? If you talked to her, I'm sure she'd explain she has felt this way since childhood.

If this person is someone who likes me, and values me professionally, can he not respect my wishes?
It's not your life. It's hers. So have nothing to do with her if you disagree so much. Your loss though.

Your friend is changing their gender not their sex

I would say don't assume you know what he thinks or feels. Don't project onto him the worst madnesses of internet TRAs, just like you probably don't recognise the monstrous depictions of TERFs by others - he's probably nothing like that. Without talking to him, you really can't know what he thinks about these things. (And you don't really need to know either tbh.) It's a belief system, I know, but you don't know what parts of it he cleaves to.

You can work with someone who has different beliefs, presumably, without sharing or pretending to share them. It's the same. I work with plenty of trans people and it's completely fine; I have some really fantastic trans colleagues! I don't share their beliefs about gender, but gender is just one more god I don't believe in. Human to human, these things are negotiable in a diverse society.

He's a person, you're a person. Be humans with each other and don't treat each other like avatars of culture war positions and it will likely be fine.

Or maybe you could check usernames and see that we are all regular Mumsnet members who just don't happen to agree with this stance?

Only you can decide if it's worth it for you (financially, professionally etc) to go ahead with the project. Or if having to half pretend he's a woman would just take the enjoyment out of the whole thing.

I don't really understand the way that the project is set up but would it be possible for you to say there is a reason for needing to postpone it for a few months - another project that you need to prioritise so you won't have the time maybe? That would give you a bit of time to let everything shake itself out a bit with him and decide if you want to work together.

hes a man

he's always been a man

he'll always be a man

why should ppl affirm his delusion? Would ppl go along with it if he claimed to be napoleon or Jesus?

@MiffedatMP

He cannot be a ‘trans female’ can he? Female is a strictly biological term.

Why is he a researcher if he does not know something so fundamental?

Jamval you are extremely prejudiced. It does not even cross your mind that I am a lesbian.

If it wasn't doing me any harm and it was clearly important to them, honestly I probably would be like "Ok Napoleon, shall we get cracking on this project then?" Why not?

Well, to be fair, he isn't a researcher in the area of biology but a completely unrelated hobby.

This would be easily resolved by clicking the see all on any of OP's posts.

Apologies if I'm not the first to say this.

OP, you started this thread by saying that he was a friend. Later, you said

I didn't know him very deeply to begin with but now he feels like a total stranger that I don't comprehend at all.

I think you have answered your own question.

Do the project and prepare to shift your goalposts far more than he ever will. There will be no middle ground.

Or don't do the project and the only problem you'll have is you haven't done the project.

Doesn't seem like, from what you have said upthread, that there's much of a friendship to lose, so perhaps remove that from the equation?

You are being pretty horrible to this friend. Based on nothing other than theyve said on FB please use "she" theyve asked nothing of you and youre trying to sack them because you believe its nonsense they now identify as trans.

Youre not even considering that this might be fine, they might expect it to be hard for people.

Youre saying if theyd found Jesus at least it wouldnt mean you had to convert whilst also expecting them to firmly convert to your opinion gender is aligned to sex. I dont know why you cant accept your friend feels differently and use the pronoun they asked for

I'd take a good hard look at some of the replies you're getting on here, OP, and avoid getting yourself into a situation that could blow up. This 'friend' hasn't shown you much respect IMO - a couple of posts on FB doesn't cover the fact that you have been put in the position of having made an offer to, essentially, a different person to the one you thought you were going to be working alongside. It's ok to reassess, and the fact you're already thinking that he is dealing badly with pressure isn't good.

I'd feel a right dick calling a strapping bloke Mary- it's idiotic and, worse, it upholds the insulting assertion that men can be women

She doesn't have to go along with it. She can end the friendship.

But she doesn't want to do that. She wants another person to do what she wants, so she can continue to use them.

Self-obsessed, much?