Snowmonk If I give permission to WhatsApp to read my address book, isn't there another setting in gos to make my actual address book unreadable while satisfying WhatsApp that it has got what it wants? Isn't that a thing with gos?
treequell You have a few options: Use WhatsApp with the Contacts permission disabled. But then you won't be able to start a new WhatsApp conversation, only continue existing ones. Save your contacts in an app like Tutanota rather than on the device. Then WhatsApp (and your other apps) won't see you contacts even with contacts permission. Use WhatsApp is a separate user profile, and save only the contacts you want WhatsApp to have access to in that user profile. Wait for the upcoming Contact Scopes feature from GrapheneOS. You'll the be able to select which contacts WhatsApp has access to in your user profile, rather than the current situation where you can only give WhatsApp access to none or all of them. Very much like Storage Scopes currently.
233328 treequell Use WhatsApp with the Contacts permission disabled. But then you won't be able to start a new WhatsApp conversation Actually you can. Just type wa.me/phone_number (with country code) as a URL in a web browser. It will load api.whatsapp.net and redirect you to the Whatsapp app which will create a chat with that number. Although you still won't be able to create new group chats with this method. Relevant Whatsapp FAQ article
User2288 Export your contact list to file, then delete all your contacts from device. Give access to whatsapp. There are no contacts it can read, but you'll be able to create new messages to new numbers. Then once you send the message, remove contacts permission to whatsapp. Then load your contacts back from the exported file. You'll have to do this for every new conversation that you want to initiate.