Hello, honorable Rabbi. In one of your articles you wrote the following:

"I have written exactly this more than once regarding the various gender disorders (or by their 'scientific' name: those suffering from gender dysphoria). There too I argued that a person has no right whatsoever to define himself. Definitions like these begin with facts and end with people’s views. At most, a person can tell us what he feels, but every other person is supposed to decide whether, in his view, such a feeling is enough for that person to be considered in his eyes a man, a woman, or an androgynous person. The fact that so-and-so himself thinks this does not obligate me to obey him and adopt his own way of relating, even when it concerns him himself. There is no ethical logic whatsoever in such a strange demand, and raising it is nothing but emotion. When people see that something is important to someone and that he is hurt if people treat him otherwise, many tend to accept it. But ethical treatment should not cling to feelings.

There is definitely room to take a person’s whims into account, even if they are groundless, if there is no other obstacle and if it does not contradict my principles. Why not be considerate and spare him suffering or hurt?! As for me personally, usually it really does not contradict anything, but if there is someone for whom it does contradict something, he is completely exempt from adopting the position of the person in question. Of course, even in my view there is a sensible limit to this (such as using the locker rooms and bathrooms of the other gender/sex, participating in sports competitions of the other gender, and the like). His rights, or our duty to take his whims into account, do not necessarily override the rights of others who may be harmed by those whims, just like in the case of Plachti. The fact that he whines and perhaps is even genuinely hurt does not make him right and does not grant him rights."

I wanted to ask about a scenario in which I feel that if I address a trans person in the form of address he asks for, that will normalize the idea that he is some kind of woman, and then little by little entry into women-only spaces such as bathrooms / prisons / locker rooms will also become normalized. And also, if I simply don’t feel like lying to him and to society that he is a woman, would it be okay, for reasons like these, not to cooperate with his request for a form of address according to his gender?

It’s justified to do whatever you feel like. If you want to address him as a male, address him as a male. That’s your consideration. I’ve written more than once that forcing me to address someone in a certain way is coercion in every sense. And if he chooses to be offended, good for him. Of course, if from your point of view it’s not something essential, then you can do what he wants so that he won’t be offended. But it is certainly not his right to demand it.