Quoting the rule from the community for reference:
- You must follow the Egg Prime Directive. You may not push or coerce people into identifying or not identifying a certain way. You must respect them as the gender they claim to identify as. In addition it is extremely in poor taste to make assumptions about other people’s identities based on external factors, we understand it cannot be helped but it is best not to as it can affect the way you treat others in noticeable ways.
Honestly, I’ve been anxious about this for a while, not sure if or how to bring this up. I understand the importance of the rule when it involves real people. But I’ve been seeing comics and memes getting criticized of breaking the Directive a couple of times now. But aren’t they just being shared from the creator’s perspective? Making fun of their own experience, such as, looking back, pointing out how obvious things seemed? When you see any other comic making fun of some situation, that doesn’t mean that applies to everyone. That’s not the statement the comic makes. It’s just something that may end up being, or having been, true for some people.
Am I wrong in feeling like the Egg Prime Directive is being invoked too easily when it comes to memes and comics?
edit: I hope this is the right place to make this post. (Also, technically, it’s breaking the title rule? Are meta posts allowed?) To be fair, I don’t recall where this has been happening the most, I’ve just seen it in my time browsing Lemmy and the many trans memes communities over the last few months. Also, note: The stickied post did not answer my question.
I’m not a mod, but personally I don’t think the egg prime directive does or should apply to fictional characters being discussed. I’ve had too many enjoyable discussions and ‘that’s not just me?’ realizations from speculation on/interpretation of a character as trans. It’s a way to connect with other trans peoples’ experiences.
But, as you note, that’s the real life/fiction divide. The EPD exists to prevent the harm that would happen to people who encounter gatekeeping behavior over their gender. As long as you’re not doing that to actual people or otherwise making gatekeepey comments I don’t think you would need to worry about it.
I don’t agree with that, and if someone creates a post saying that Felix or Astolfo are eggs and people need to accept that they’re trans girls in denial, that post will be removed just the same as a post that directly and blatantly misgenders fictional characters would be. Egging in those contexts is blatant misgendering, some cases like the one the OP mentioned aren’t so bad and will be left up, even though I’ll still personally and morally judge them.
Misgendering though doesn’t fly here, that’s actually also a Blahaj rule too, people who misgender others, even fictional characters can get banned from Blahaj for it. I’ve seen it happen before.
Oh and by the way, yes it is different to say that Bridget is trans than it is to say that Felix is trans, because bridget is canonically trans, while Felix blatantly says “I am a boy”. So that’s not a gotcha there. Fictional misgendering is misgendering, and that’s not up for debate or argument.
I subscribe to the idea that art is up to the viewer to interpret how they want. “Death of the author” I think it’s called. If someone looks at Felix, and sees an egg in him that has yet to crack, then that’s a valid interpretation of the art, to that person. Just as if someone were to look at a character and interpret them as trans, whether they are canonically cis or it’s left open (Spider Gwen comes to mind). I experienced a sad ending to a story? Well, too bad, author, my headcanon’s now that everything works out after all!
There may be problematic ways of doing that, and it’s in no way okay to assert one’s interpretation as the only truth. But fundamentally, that’s part of the freedom you get with art.
Would Bridget have become canonically trans if that freedom was taken away from people? (And heck, does it include the author?) Would Xenia have been reborn as a popular now-trans Linux mascot?
So there’s gotta be wiggle room in both situations. Fictional characters breaking the Prime Egg Directive, because of artists’ freedom of expression; and real people seeing fictional characters differently from the author and others, because of freedom of interpretation.
It’s very important to remember that headcanons are headcanons, and I bring this up because there are people that try and argue that they are the objectively and only correct version, and try and say that people who don’t follow that person’s headcanons are transphobic.
It becomes problematic when it becomes misgendering, fictional misgendering doesn’t fly, even though it is fictional. When a character openly and repeatedly affirms their identity as a boy, at that point we’re straddling the line between head-canon and misgendering and at that point if someone decides to force it onto people and insist it isn’t a headcanon (like I called out above) it becomes an example of fictional misgendering.
You mean if Bridget had been written to be a feminine boy and said she was a boy? No, it just wouldn’t happen. People can have their headcanons but if Bridget had stayed canonically a femboy those would just be headcanons and people wouldn’t be able to force them onto non-believers or accuse people of transphobia for not believing them.
If on the other hand you mean the series was abandoned and there is no more canon with only new fanmade content being produced the situation changes, like what you mentioned with Xenia, the old Linux Mascot.
I think this sounds like we’re generally in agreement? I might just put less weight on “the canon”.
To be fair, trans Xenia was sanctioned by the original artist, but my worry was along the lines of, if cathodegaytube was a “strong believer” in the Prime Egg Directive, would it have discouraged them from re-imagining this character? I don’t personally think how recent a character was created or whether it was abandoned has any relevance.
I don’t think it would, this is a very different situation than those ones I laid out where a person is insisting that some character must be trans because they believe it as their headcanon, but believe their headcanon is objectively correct because [intert justification here]. So I don’t think this is remotely an issue here.
I have no idea who most of those characters are or the context of any of that, sorry. I also don’t think that there’s anything wrong with having both cis and trans interpretations of the same character, provided you’re not being gender essentialist about it. Not everyone is going to have the same personal experiences with regards to gender, and that’s fine.
I should note this comment is about discussion among trans people, I basically don’t trust cis people to not stomp on toes while doing this.
Ultimately we need to ask if the egg prime directive is there for us to serve it or it to serve us. If we’re at the point that some trans people feel they can’t talk about trans interpretations of fictional characters without being afraid of getting banned, that’s a messed up application of the rules.
Good, I’m not a cis person (despite the gatekeeping transphobic idiots who say I am).
The Egg Prime directive is here to serve all queer people, all of LGBTQIA+. It exists because people deserve to be themselves and not have their identity invalidated for it. It is being enforced more strongly here and now because a lot of people unfortunately do not recognize in their hearts how calling someone an egg based on presentation is a bad thing, or just how bad it is. And actually this interpretation about misgendering characters isn’t really new. Blahaj has always had rules against misgendering as a whole, even towards fictional characters.
A headcanon is different and people can have headcanons though it must be clear they are headcanons, what people on the old r/egg_irl have done where they try and force it as the only true interpretation and attack people who disagree with them and screech transphobia at them (without any transphobia happening might I add). Absolutely crosses the line.
Yeah, I assumed you were trans, sorry if anything I said gave the impression otherwise.
Just laying this out to try to clarify my own thinking:
^ All of that I agree with. And obviously someone can post about their headcanons in a way that’s meant to cause problems and shit stir, I just don’t see a general problem with people interpreting fictional characters as eggs. Two people can see the exact same presentation of a character and interpret it in two diametrically opposing ways based on their own experiences, and that’s not a problem. Sharing that just expands our understanding of ourselves and each other.