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?

I disagree about the “you” problem.

Before trans ideology demanded that women deny their sex and sacrifice their rights, protections and language itself, I’d have been ok in OP’s position.

But now? As long as working with a trans person requires supporting their perspective of themselves as female (or male) - and note that the OP does say “female”, not “woman” - that requires a compromise from another. You implicitly acknowledge this yourself in your references to courtesy, and the apparent necessity of you theorising about pronouns to show it.

Gestures like these have an accumulated social and cultural weight - a meaning that goes beyond mere words. To call your boss “Sir,” is to accept the hierarchy of your company: “I acknowledge your seniority.” And this is where the issue is - not with OP herself,

To call an trans woman “she” used merely to signify, “I wish to show, in the isolated instances of my using your chosen pronoun, that I would like you to feel comfortable.” And that was a reasonable request. But now, that gentle gesture of the past has come to be associated with supporting a movement that denies the validity of who the OP is herself, to a viscerally distressing degree. And that has actual concrete consequences form women’s rights. No wonder she finds it degrading - I do, too.

I suspect that whether or not you do depends on how au fait you are with the demands of this ideology and the fight to retain our protections in law. But, regardless, it’s not a problem with the OP, but very much a problem with a trans activism that is making the accommodations many of us were previously ready or even keen to offer all but incompatible with our own rights and autonomy. And that, as such, is harming the more vulnerable trans individuals, too.

To blame the OP for that harm is to massively oversimplify this issue.

OP is the one who's apparently going to bin off a very lucrative opportunity - not to mention a friendship she apparently values - because she can't bring herself to associate with a trans person so I'm not convinced I'm the real idiot here.

In that case I can force him to always refer to me as Your Royal Highness or "Oh perfect and gorgeous one." Or Napoleon. Because that's what I "prefer".

That's daft. I don't think we can force or demand people think of us or speak to us in a way that endorses something that isn't true but is just what they "prefer".

The problem with it is the consequences can be severe - death and rape threats, look at JK Rowling (and others) and if he talks about you to other, unhinged, TRAs you can't control that. It depends if you think he'd do this, though I'd suggest if you didn't see this coming you probably don't really know him that well and trans ideology fucks up peoples moral compasses or concept of others as equally deserving of human compassion and rights.

Personally I would go with having 'personal issues' (that I'm menopausal and don't want to have to cope with people being misogynistic shits to me if I don't have to) and therefore having to permanently delay the project. Maybe some unexpected caring duties - you know the ones the male type of women never do - come up?

Liar. Liar. Liar. That is NOT what I said. I want the project to go ahead. As I have made abundantly clear in my OP and other posts. If I was just "binning him off" there would not be a problem for me to ask MNetters about, would there? So stop lying about me.

Asking.

Asking implies a request, not a demand. So OP is perfectly free to decline without being piled on is she?

Following on from the above, does it occur to your that the above could apply to the OP, too, word-for-word?

Nobody's asking you this trans person to 'convert’ [in asking him to use sex-based pronouns in this limited context]. They’re The OP is just asking you this trans woman to refer to them the OP in a way they prefer [by not claiming OP’s words, and insisting on her complicity in implicitly redefining what it means to her to be a woman]. In my day this was just called manners. If you the trans woman go goes ahead with the project [and forgoes pronouns in this context] I think you'll they’ll find they are that OP is the same person they've always been and it's really not that big of a deal. A little politeness and professionalism goes a long way.

I’m not necessarily saying which of these two alternatives has more validity in this situation (eg. I’m both wary of pronoun use and resistent to misgendering in situations like this).

What I am saying is, think about why you inky see your own narrative, above, and how, somewhere else in the metaverse, it quite easily could be entirely reversed. The difference is in whether a society values the primacy of the trans woman’s right to self-identify or the woman’s right to do the same.

Oh give over, obviously it is a "you problem" if you're so uncomfortable around trans people you can't work with one, you can be as gender critical as you like but trans people are going to continue to exist and you will encounter them from time to time, and either you can respond to that by torching your friendships and business opportunities like OP apparently intends to, or you can just be a grown up and learn to get on with people who are different to you. The gender critical movement is doing no one any favours by making such an ogre out of trans people that people like OP become terrified to even interact with them.

Yes, I think she should be free to decline. But I would think she was being unneccessarily rude.

But asking me to believe he has become female (the specific term he uses) since March this year IS asking me to convert, Labyrinth. Can't you see that? It's asking me to convert from being someone who knows humans cannot change sex, to someone who believes they can.

Frankly we all know that the response to not wanting to use wrong-sex pronouns for someone on demand will be very similar to Dumbledore or anyone refusing to call Tom Riddle 'Lord Voldemort'. I.e. they are immediately considered an enemy.

Tom Riddle knows that forcing people to call him 'Lord Voldemort' implicitly places him as superior and in a position of power over the person who submits, something Dumbledore knows which is why he doesn't do it. It's a clever type of coercive control, dressed up as a reasonable demand.

And therein lies the problem. It's not really giving her a choice is it.

This thread perfectly demonstrates that OP will be called names just for having a different view.

Self ID is not law in England. The enforced use of pronouns has never been tested in court.

All you have to look at is A has one view and B has a different view. Neither of them are wrong. Respect goes both ways.

I do understand that, and honestly I would share your worry. But if you've been clear about your beliefs at the start, I can't see how he has a leg to stand on if he later comes back to you and demands you ignore them.

Re assuming there's a chance he'll change his mind... You can (reasonably) fear that his beliefs are going to turn him into someone demanding and unreasonable, but I'm not sure it's okay to cut him out based on this possibility when he hasn't actually done it? Not all trans people behave like that so it's not a given. Isn't acting on an assumption a bit like cutting out a friend who has converted to moderate Islam just in case they turn into a fanatic at a later date? I appreciate Islam is not a perfect comparison (not being demanding of non-believers) but it helps me to consider the same problem in a slightly different scenario iyswim.

You literally just said you were going to cancel or postpone the project, don't you dare call me a liar for responding to your own words.

Honestly it's starting to sound like your friend is better off without you with all the accusations and insults you seem happy to fling around, I hope he's able to offer his unique expertise to someone else who can work with him without prejudice and that he thoroughly enjoys the resulting money.

Your words:

"I think your making me realise that has given me the answer to it -- I really will have to cancel the project, which also makes me feel gutted, but at least it does not make me feel terrified of being targetted by the mob. I have seen on YouTube how viciously they attack women and I don't want to put myself in that firing line.

I'll postpone it and hope that one day he'll realise it was just a response to heavy stress and return to being his old self again."

I’m not quite it is the same as someone holding various other beliefs that are just their personal stance on something.

This is not a personal belief as it puts pressure on others to affirm the counter reality. The lie, if you will. And my goodness, it can become quite the persecution of your ‘wrong think’ if you don’t play along with it. If you believe in reality like.

No, nobody should force you to. But caring so much if it's 'true' or not seems weird. I get called by a nickname. Should people make a big deal because it's not the one on my birth certificate? I think you are overthinking this. Keep it professional and neutral. It's not your life.

I have a few FB friends who are trans but they are all "old-school" post-op transsexuals who have presented as female for many decades before we became acquainted so I have never known them as anything different to how they are today. From their posts on my feed I can see that they accept biological reality, too. I have never met any in person, either - except one, briefly.

I'm not terrified to interact with my friend but am terrified that he may decide to make my life a living hell if I don't pretend to play along.

I find it telling when a considered argument about balancing rights, including some acknowledgement of concern for trans people, brings out apparent anger (and tired cliche) in turn - and from a poster who was managing to walk a more careful path before that.

It honestly comes across as a fear of engaging with the nuance in a complex issue.

I don’t know whether your own misunderstandings of my (very clear) post are deliberate or a kind of instinctive defence mechanism of this kind, but they’re the last way possible to bring people like me round to your way of thinking.

Reading the thoughtful anxiety of people like OP… then seeing the reductive, reactionary and often rude responses to it of “the other side” are what tipped me into the GC camp. I’m on the side of reflection, discussion and caution - and, above all, not assuming the worst of someone responsible enough to be stressing the way the OP is.

I would defer it. Not necessarily indefinitely, but just long enough that the two of you can get used to the situation and work out how you're going to deal with it. And I do think it's something you need to negotiate together. The burden of discomfort shouldn't be yours alone. Good luck with this.

But you do realise your "old school" friends were once in exactly the same situation this person is, newly coming out and trying to navigate the world? Presumably he's never behaved in a "terrifying" way before or you wouldn't be friends, so why do you assume he's suddenly going to start? Why for that matter are you asking mumsnet when none of us know this person from Adam instead of actually talking to him?

(To be - characteristically! - cautious, I should add I’ve not read all of OP’s posts, when I usually would… but those I have read simply make some really thoughtful points that I desperately wish TRAs would address. Based on this - I hope it all works out, OP, for you and the friend).

Could you explain you don’t believe that people can change sex anymore that you believe in [name of whatever deity/religion you don’t believe in] and ask him to respect your beliefs?

I have got a friend who has a nephew that decided he was female and said friend was enthusiastically going along with it. In the end I did say to my friend I didn’t believe in trans ideology and henceforth his nephew that he was calling his niece was never mentioned again.