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.
For a more concrete example, this post: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/22944727
I found this comic really heckin’ funny. Then I checked the comments. “Egg Prime Directive” Was I… supposed to be in agreement that the comic is problematic? I can’t really, no matter how I tried to twist it in my head. (Props to the mod for leaving the post up even though they criticized it though.)
Of course, nobody should do this to a real person, but this is a representation of something the artist has felt. We see comics of characters being ridiculous, or doing the impossible, and stories that involve violence or all manner of bad things. You wouldn’t take this to mean that you can or should do that in real life, right?
People can rightfully inform others to tell them not to behave like that themselves. But I worry that if they’re too blunt (figuratively) shouting “Prime Egg Directive!”, there will be people that feel discouraged about expressing themselves artistically like this, or making light of their own past in certain ways. And again, I’ve legit felt anxious myself at times when this came up before, and even now when I’m trying to talk about it.
In that case, it feels like the other two characters are metaphorical representations of the first person looking back at themselves as an egg and poking fun at how self-oblivious they were, so I don’t see how it violates such rule.
Perhaps I’m projecting though cause no one assumed I was trans afaik until after I started saying or doing things to intentionally hint that I was an I wanted to get questioned (not told I must be a certain gender or trans, but just asked if I was trying to tell them something).
I’m not sure the characters being fiction is a strong reason for the same reason “it’s just a joke” isn’t a good enough reason to justify jokes that promote harmful ideology via their assumptions. But there is certainly more wiggleroom with fictional characters and there is also the risk of trans erasure in fiction if taken too far imo.
I just want to say, I left the post up because it was a fictional setting and said post doesn’t actually break the egg prime directive. Though I will still criticize it on that merit because the thing is. Violations of the Egg prime directive are seen way too lightly, and as I said in my other comment aren’t really recognized in our hearts as being as harmful as they really are. It’s why people even think they’re funny or relatable when a similar situation making light of transmisogyny wouldn’t be. Of course displays of fictional transmisogyny are permitted when they have value or share experiences but they are handled in a much different and more serious way, and egging just isn’t handled that way. Like I said most people don’t recognize it in their hearts as being as bad as it is.
I think this is a problem because if we don’t recognize why it’s bad, we’re more likely to decide there are situations where its okay. Even the community chosen name “Egg Prime Directive” is misleading because the Prime Directive in Star Trek is very morally flexible, and indeed one could argue should be broken to save a people from disaster or even from ignorance. That is not the case with the Egg Prime Pirective, because trying to break someone’s egg so to speak or force them to “be trans” is going to be a very traumatic experience for most people, and for people who aren’t actually trans, is straight up gaslighting and misgendering.
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.
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.