this post was submitted on 01 May 2025
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Not to "true scotsman" this, but the egg prime directive isn't saying you can't have those conversations with people.
This person notably didn't say "my trans friends told me I was an egg, so I tried HRT just to shut them up." It sounds like they were aware it was an option through conversations where it wasn't pushed at them. This person made their own choice.
The egg prime directive is saying that you don't get to declare someone else's identity for them. You don't get to make that choice for them. It's about consent.
I think most of us would agree that it would be abhorrent to tell someone who is asexual that they just haven't found the right partner yet and clearly they're homosexual (or straight or bi) in denial. I see it as the same thing.
And the online culture of labelling other people as eggs is so far removed from the concept of "trying to help someone figure out who they are" that I have a very hard time taking this in good faith. C'mon, of course there are different rules for socialization online vs in person vs with friends.
The egg prime directive makes zero sense in a world of cisnormativity where nobody is allowed to explore gender and arrive at the conclusion that they are, indeed, cis.
Instead, everyone is cis by default, and for some reason some people on the internet decided it was evil to suggest to people showing non-cis traits or behaviors that they, indeed, may not be cis. Sometimes, if someone who insists they're cisgender hangs out with trans people, knows all the trans lingo and has opposite sex OCs and fantasies about being the opposite sex, you've gotta throw a reality check their way. It would be murder not to.
The assumption that demonstrating traits not aligned with your gender must make you the other gender is silly, short sighted, needlessly restrictive of potential identities, and in and of itself dangerous. Full stop.
That is the same logic used years back to argue that men who were not traditionally masculine had to be gay. That causes harm as well. Harm I've experienced through bullying, ostracization, etc. After hearing that assumption of my sexuality enough times, I suffered confusion about my identity as a teen. Now people are arguing that somehow using that same logic but now it means you're trans?
I cannot make this any clearer: Present people with their options and allow them to make their own damn choices.
Over a decade later I'm still not particularly masculine, and I am happy in a cishet marriage with a child I am proud to be a father to. Yeah, I'm technically bisexual. I have a single digit number of men I've encountered in my 30+ years that I could go for, but I'm not gay which was the identity prescribed to me.
When even the most generous studies show trans people as making up a single digit percentage of the population, it's silly to argue that there is an intrinsic problem with CIS being the default.
The problem is when people don't understand that not being cis is an option. Or when they don't leave options open. Don't conflate that with the fact that good or bad, cis is factually overwhelmingly the default.
If people are allowed to be whatever they wish (and they should be) then there is room for people who are cis but display traits not aligned with that.
Tomboys exist. Women who demonstrate traditionally masculine traits but are still women. There are also trans men, who may have done the same pre-transistion but are men. There has to be room for both.
Not entirely sure what the term would be, but feminine men exist who are still men and are not trans. There are also trans women.
All of those identities ae valid. Assuming trans because non-conformity is just setting a new needlessly restrictive default.
Lastly, once again I must emphasize that:
your example of someone in a group of friends is NOT what the egg prime directive is about.
Different fucking social situations call for different rules and approaches. For fucks sake.
Yeah, cishet man, tell me how to interact in different social situations. Please tell me more about how cisnormativity isn't killing trans people left and right.
And there it is. It almost always comes down to "cishet bad".
Look. I almost killed myself over how many times I was told I had to be gay growing up when I wasn't. Often by well meaning people. Please don't turn transness into the new default label for people who aren't gender conforming.