I bit ago I made a post detailing the Egg prime directive in Egg irl. To be clear that was a policy post but it also helped outline the concept in a way that many people don’t do. Most descriptions of the Egg prime directive are either incomplete or, purposefully uncharitable. So it’s good to clarify it.
This is a different kind of post, unlike that one it’s not a policy post in regards to community enforcement, it’s more meant to address the issue in a general sense.
Today I’m going to talk about why the Egg Prime Directive is important, and also more importantly, why people disagreeing with it or not following it isn’t acceptable.
First why does it matter? Well I discussed it heavily in my other post but the gist of it is that it is important to respect the way a person identifies themselves, the pronouns they use, the label they call themselves. Regardless of how they look or present themselves. It seems like a pretty fundamental concept that there shouldn’t be any issue with, yet somehow many people seem to have an issue with it and don’t do it. When a person’s identity isn’t respected it can be deeply hurtful and is ultimately deeply disrespectful to them.
Why ‘disagreement’ with the egg is problematic at best? Well the thing is, because the Egg Prime Directive is solely about respecting the way a person identifies themselves and their autonomy to identify themselves in a way that they see fit, to argue against it is to argue against people’s validity to self-identification. It’s not much different from arguing against certain aspects of trans rights. Ultimately many instances where people break the Egg Prime Directive are targeting individuals who are Gender-Nonconforming or even NonBinary.
Some people argue that they should be able to break it to fight cisnormativity. However this is a very poor justification to try and make it seem okay to violate someone else’s gender identification and ultimately isn’t being done for their benefit, it is going against their right to identify as any gender or use any label they feel like. To be clear, they have that right, all the time. The idea that someone doesn’t have the right to identify as their preferred gender or label in certain circumstances is downright dystopian.
Bottom line, there is no such thing as respectful disagreement with this concept, going against the Egg Prime Directive is solely an act of going against another person’s identification. It isn’t respectful to them as a person. It’s very similar to “respectful transmedicalism” or “respectful transphobia” in this regard. It is a harmful behavior made out as if it’s respectful or good.
Oh and By the way. Before someone tries to argue that Egging is “politely explaining what trans means to someone” this subject has been covered in the last post and respectful support and education is NOT Egging, and is freely allowed by the Egg prime directive, if not explicitly encouraged, trying to argue as if it somehow isn’t is disingenuous, and frankly seems extremely uncharitable.
I think the last part is so important, and why the “Egg Prime Directive!” mantra makes me a bit uncomfortable.
Why?
Because I wish so much somebody had sat me down in my mid teens and said “hey, dumbass, the reason you’re so unhappy and wish you were a girl is because you’re trans. You should talk to a therapist.” I resent losing out on all those years.
How would I have reacted to that hypothetical person? Probably very badly, which is why Egging is a Bad Thing.
But if someone had talked to that kid with kindness, explained about what being trans is without accusation, and lent an ear until I’d worked up the courage to ask for professional help, things might have turned out much better.
I suspect a lot of egging comes from a similar place. So let’s try to show people how to be supportive without invalidating others’ identities, in preference to beating them with the anti-egging stick. Exactly how to achieve this, I have no idea…
I think approaching a situation like yours with kindness doesn’t require breaking the prime directive though. There’s a big difference between “you’re trans and should start transitioning” and “wow, that reminds me of how I felt when I was figuring my gender stuff out.” The former is what a therapist did to me, immediately trying to push medical transition on me the second I mentioned any gender feelings, after which I never saw her again. The latter might have been useful to me in a way that respected my own journey.
Sure, was that therapist “right” in terms of me socially transitioning and starting hormones about a year later? Yeah. But, she was wrong to think it was appropriate to push my timeline and had I listened to her I fear I would have been plagued with doubts that my transness was rooted in that therapist’s opinion rather than my own lived truth.
Ah, that’s what I was trying but failing to express.
Given how the population of trans-centered spaces appears to skew heavily towards newly-out and questioning people, it seems likely to me that many people just don’t know how to comment helpfully without egging, or realize that they’re being harmful.
It reminds me of the “oh you’re trans? But you don’t look it” comments: yeah, they’re essentially transphobic but more likely than not born of ignorance rather than hate.
The end result is the same, though, so I don’t want to pretend it’s not harmful. And I agree that enforcement is needed.
I had a very similar path, and would probably have responded similarly. I’ve also been on the other side of it and believing with high confidence that taking a transition step would help someone be happier. I didn’t push her on it. Because it was her decision even tho in my head I was screaming “just take the fucking estrogen”. It took almost a year but she recently shared that she started HRT. It was her decision, made in her own time, on her own terms, as it should be. Her body, her gender, her choice.
Here’s the thing about egging, while I do see the ability for people to grow and change from their mistakes, the same could be said about any mistakes, including ‘polite transphobia’ i.e. “I’m okay with trans people but I wish they wouldn’t try to force it on kids” that kind of shit. Now this behavior isn’t excusable even though they may learn from it, and similar “Boys don’t want to dress like girls, if a boy wants to she must be a girl because that isn’t cis behavior” rhetoric ends up being gatekeeping and invalidating as well.
One could argue that these people might mean well with their statements and not fully understand the implication of what they are saying, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And frankly it’s not worth it to excuse these kinds of toxicity, it creates a toxic space where people are able to question or debate other people’s identities in ways that are invalidating or harmful. They do have the opportunity to learn which is why I am explaining the Egg Prime Directive, but the people who hear this, give it an uncharitable interpretation, then violate it blatantly need the stick. If not for them for the rest of the community who doesn’t want to and shouldn’t need to tolerate being called an egg for being NB or GNC.
Ultimately that way to “try to show people how to be supportive without invalidating others’ identities” is to educate them like what I am doing right now. But since people get hurt when identities aren’t respected, the level of flexibility they will be afforded to mistakes or noncompliance must me minimal, if even present at all.