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?

For the reasons OP has already explained. She doesn't want him to get nasty about it. She is allowed to quietly withdraw.

The pressure on women to accept this crap is horrendous. Not all trans people are the same, she is allowed to like some and not others.

You screamed "Liar liar liar" at me for taking your own words - that you wanted to cancel the project - at face value.

Honestly, it sounds like there is one party who is likely to cause drama in this working relationship and it isn't your friend.

I am happy to respect his belief that he changed sex in March by having his ears pierced and buying an eyeliner pencil. Just as I am happy to respect my best friend's belief in God, and another friend's belief in tarot cards and karma. But respecting a belief does not mean pretending that I share that belief. Because it would be pretending, because I do not believe a man can change sex.

If it's "not political" why are they repeatedly marching in the streets carrying banners making demands, banners which were supplied by the Socialist Worker (it's printed on the banner)? Why have they spent so much time lobbying MPs, trying to get the law changed, using the police and the judiciary to punish non-believers? How is that not political?

You clearly don't have the foggiest idea about me, him, or what this is about so you might as well go on another thread and write nonsense there instead.

If it's "not political" why are they repeatedly marching in the streets carrying banners making demands, banners which were supplied by the Socialist Worker (it's printed on the banner)? Why have they spent so much time lobbying MPs, trying to get the law changed, using the police and the judiciary to punish non-believers? How is that not political?

Has your friend been doing all this? He has been busy.

If a 'friend' suddenly started demanding I bow whenever they walked into my presence or treated them like a cat, providing a litter tray if they visited then I wouldn't do it. I'd suspect some degree of coercive control and in the latter case some kind of sexual fetish at play.

There are certain 'requests' which set off our spidey senses for a reason.

I don't have the foggiest idea about you, which is why when you said "I'm going to cancel the project" I took that to mean you were going to cancel the project; you then screamed at me that I was a liar so yes I have rather formed some opinions about you at this point.

You were talking about trans people in general, not the person I am posting about. You make no sense.

I can certainly try. And hope that there won't be any punishment.

Honestly OP, I would not even try to have a conversation with him right now. He won't be open to hearing your views. Just gradually withdraw, engage with him less and if he brings up the project just say it's on the back burner for now,

You won't be the only one in his life to do this, trans people say it's common to lose some friends and family and they deal with that fine. It's ok to just quietly move on.

Maybe but I did not know them then AND more importantly, they "came out" 30 or 40 years ago, long before the trans movement became so demanding and threatening.

I didn't say he will start, I said I fear that he will be or is being radicalised once he starts joining online trans groups who urge him to become more demanding. These groups did not exist 30/40 years ago and what trans groups there were did not act in the way present day activists behave. I've seen dozens of YouTube videos in which they act aggressively, demanding, threatening. That did not happen years ago. They just met in living rooms and swapped fashion tips.

Why does anyone ask anything on Mumsnet? It's chock-full of people asking how to deal with their kids/hubands/mothers/friends, who none of us have met. Go ask them.

On this thread at the moment we are only allowed to talk about one type of trans person and other types of trans people. Posts are deleted for mentioning the other so it's not really going to be possible to discuss OP's concerns but safe to say we get it.

That depends on what one considers to be polite. Is it polite or impolite for a man to expect others to refer to him with "she"?

The other issue is this man is clearly demonstrating he has sexist views.

It's rather ironic you're worrying about him becoming "radicalised" online while also admitting your own concerns have been formed by watching youtube videos.

If you actually have any interest in preserving your friendship and/or working relationship, honestly you need to get off the internet and have an actual conversation with this person. And if you really can't continue the friendship/collaboration, ok, that's your right and prerogative, but what you don't have is the right to control other people's opinions of you, so if people assume you have called things off because he is trans now, then I'm afraid that's not something you can prevent (especially not when they're right),

Oh, so you are calling him "he" now?

I've been calling him he all along. It's ok, he can't hear me.

Not Youtube videos of people speaking to camera urging me to make demands and report people to their employers.

I am talking about youtube videos showing clearly the activities of trans activists in the public streets. They are doing it in front of the cameras. Shouting, chanting, holding up banners demanding or threatening.

Completely different, as you well know!

But it's not your friend in those youtube videos? Unless you're about to drop the mother of all dripfeeds?

There is a culture of fear around this, Horse. I think that one’s hard to deny. I’d say it’s most likely that OP mentions YouTube vids as a proxy for this wider phenomenon. She may as well have said employment tribunals, “punch a TERF chants” and weapon-themed merchandise. Sweary placards. Recent revelations about the BBC. The hounding of people in the arts. I could go on.

And again I say - this hasn’t helped trans people, either. Along with the political demands I discuss above, such an aggressive approach (even if by a minority of activists, although it sure as heck doesn’t feel that way) has made those of us who were previously unthinkingly accommodating very wary indeed, if not - yes - downright fearful.

Something’s rotten in the state of this movement when this is the case.

OP if you are a lesbian and he is heterosexual I can totally get your reticence about working with him.
I am deeply GC.
I think delaying the project for a bit sounds sensible until you can work out what is going on with him and if there is a good way through that you are comfortable with.

I think there's a word for it when you judge an entire group by the actions of it's worst members, I'm just trying to remember what it is...

Oh yes. Prejudice.

Maybe I don't spend enough time online being told how frightened I should be, but I don't believe human beings can change sex and I believe in single sex spaces and yet I have never had a problem being able to speak to trans people, interact with trans people, or in having trans work colleagues or friends. OP hasn't even spoken to her friend since he came out and yet seems completely prepared to burn down the friendship and do herself out of a project she claims could make a lot of money because all she can now think about is all the prejudices she's swallowed and not the person she already knows, and the majority of posters on this thread are encouraging her in this attitude. Something is rotten alright.

Yes. So we should not mention the concept of autogynephilia and a certain type of porn which, completely by coincidence, is often the preferred genre of porn consumed by men who suddenly announce they're women.

I wish you’d read and respond to the content of my posts instead of replying to an argument of your own making you find more convenient to counter.

I reflect on the challenges of balancing trans people’s and women’s rights, acknowledging concern for the former. You respond with hyperbole and the frankly bizarre “always going to exist” (a source of eternal mystification to me).

I refer to fear around a movement, citing fairly incontrovertible examples of how this is generated. And noting concern for trans people again. You respond with accusations of prejudice.

There is an anticipatory wariness in OP’s concerns, absolutely. Does that shade into “prejudice”? Well, I don’t know the OP, and I’ve not read the full thread, but I have drawn out some threads in what she’s saying that suggest things are much more complex.

Meanwhile, from you? Just in the above, there’s sarcasm, oversimplification, hyperbole - and outright condemnation of OP as ethically total anathema. There’s such absolute, incontrovertible certainty in what you write, even as your language is fairly extreme and your accusations decidedly damning.

Yes. I do think the word prejudice is potentially relevant here.

(And even there, note the caution in “potentially”).

If any other person started demanding you participate in their belief, and expected you to observe rituals from their belief system / religion that conflict with your beliefs, you would consider it rude and disrespectful at best.

This is no different.

If he's happy for you to continue to use normal English / sex-based pronouns for everyone, including him, then that's fine but you have grounds to be wary as apart from Miranda Yardley I've not heard of a single trans identified male who is happy for people to respectfully tolerate each others beliefs on whether humans can change sex.