site’s back, time to party
The way some Egg Prime Directivists talk about the “dangers” of pushing your friend so hard they go full gender repression makes it sound like all of their trans friends were Tara from I Saw the TV Glow. Girl, just mention the possibility and have them talk about their feelings wtf.
yeah I dunno, I often wish people had pushed a little harder on gender stuff. I knew about it academically, I had trans friends, they knew I had big gender feelings, but nobody pushed me on it, for years and years, it basically only came up when I brought it up.
Someone pushing me a little is what helped me accept my non-hetero sexuality back well before I knew I was trans. (just prodding a bit when I said 100% totally straight stuff like “I don’t have a crush on X friend because he wouldn’t be into it” or some shit. All it took was someone going “that’s really not a normal straight thought you know?”)
It didn’t get me to come out exactly but it brought some internal suppressed thoughts and memories out and spoken into the real world, and I never again was closeted to myself…
i was eggy as all shit and my friends all knew. i was vocally complaining about how much i hated being cis for years, and i would have really liked someone to give me a nudge and say “girl, for fuck’s sake, you don’t have to be cis, you can change your gender into something you actually like”
Same. I generally kept gender stuff to myself starting at a young age except expressing some confusion about how someone could care so much about gender to transition (but its not realistic to expect people to tell me I’m expressing similar ideas as agender people when agender people weren’t really a group people knew about), so I wouldn’t expect there to be much chance for someone to say something much earlier… but still wish someone would have said something earlier.
On tumblr someone ran a couple of polls analyzing cis gay, cis lesbian, trans women, trans men etc about how they would feel telling someone they thought they were gay/lesbian/trans or whatever. The only group where people were uncomfortable was trans women telling someone who’s questioning or just seems like they have some tendencies or whatever that they might be trans - except trans women themselves. Trans men had a similar thing just not quite as stark.
WAIT I HEARD ONE OF MY TRANS FRIENDS MENTION THIS TO ME, DO YOU HAVE A LINK TO THAT? i know tumblr searching is dogshit but i really want to find a link to that poll
Trans women were also polled, and the question was split up like: "A. I am a trans woman, and I would tell my friend that they might be trans
B. I am a trans woman, and I would not tell my friend that they might be trans
C. I am not a trans woman, and I would tell my friend that they might be trans
D. I am not a trans woman, and I would not tell my friend that they might be trans"
A was more common than B, D more common than C (the ratio of D:C was higher for this question than any other group they studied). It wasn’t a super scientific poll but it point to the egg prime directive being more of a transmisogyny thing. There wasn’t a gay “egg” prime directive or lesbian “egg” prime directive, there was kind of a trans man egg prime directive but not as big as the people saying never tell someone they might be a trans woman. Except for trans women themselves, they’re much cooler with breaking that prime directive in the study.
This has always bothered me like yeah I get how a lot of eggs instinctively try to hide their transness as a result of growing up in a cisnormative society and how pushing too hard can be counterproductive but, like, where’s the harm in just telling someone “hey I experienced that too and it turned out to be a trans thing, maybe it’s something like that for you too?” Like, there’s countless stories of queer people who struggled with their identity simply because they didn’t know it was a thing; no one told them. And yet, when it comes to trans people there’s this whole culture of not telling people they might be trans! It really does feel like transphobia
spoiler
Like being trans is this shameful thing that shouldn’t be broached directly. It also feels kinda like a repackaged form of the “groomer” narrative where you should avoid “influencing” an egg into being trans
repackaged form of the “groomer” narrative where you should avoid “influencing” an egg into being trans
If I could turn people trans I would tbh
Fr even Nevada explored the idea in the second part. I won’t spoil exactly how it goes down but the book even acknowledges that the “dangers” of pushing the idea someone might be trans are overblown. It’s not like there’s a point of no return, you don’t have to commit to keep taking HRT, detransitioning is always an option (even though a vast majority of detransitioners do so for reasons OTHER THAN A FALSE DIAGNOSIS).
There’s nowhere near this amount of pushback for other queer identities. It’s mainstream for “maybe you’re gay/bi/lesbian” to be a punchline. If one were to make the same joke but with transness it would not fly even with supposed allies. It’s so goddamn stupid.