It’s not reinforcing that idea. For the author of the comic, she played as women in games and later discovered she was one. You can play as whatever character you want to play as and it doesn’t have to say anything about you.
I always played as girls and women in games when I had the choice. I also gravitated towards books with female protagonists. Like the author of the above comic, I also ended up discovering my womanhood and transitioning. This community, egg_irl, is for trans people. Nominally for memes to do with things we did before we came out that now make sense to us after the fact.
Whether the author intends to reinforce that idea or not, the comic itself (having one character say “Honest! I just like looking at women’s asses better than men’s!” while the other one says “hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm no I think you’re trans”) very much does.
Also the other character is committing blatant violations of the egg prime directive by deliberately questioning another person’s gender identity in response to the person saying why they like doing something. This is extremely disrespectful to that person and dismisses their identity.
The biggest problem is that even though this is describing something internal for the person, it is normalizing something which is disrespectful to the identities of others.
But okay, is it just the framing that’s the issue here? Would the meme be fine if it depicted an internal dialogue by the creator? Is it purely an issue because of the existence of the friend character?
I’m assuming this to be the case based on what the sidebar shows as the “egg prime directive”. Which in and of itself is a valid issue with the content. I think it’s a pretty uncharitable interpretation, but yeah I can see how it normalizes that.
I think that it would be significantly better had it been framed as an internal dialogue rather than external criticism. It might still be a bit problematic if it phrases the reasons given as invalid, rather than just not what it is for them, because even though to many people it feels like they said something stupid, they weren’t, those are valid, real reasons why people do it. The idea that the reasons aren’t valid as opposed to being simply not the reasons for themself in their case is also not great in the same way.
It’s possible that I’m reading it differently, but I see the reasons being portrayed not as invalid in and of themselves, but rather as being weak attempts at excusing their own actual motivations for playing as girls and women.
I also didn’t play as female characters because of their clothing options or their appearance being more aesthetically appealing. It was in fact because I wanted to be perceived and acknowledged as a girl and that was the closest it was permissible for me to get. I definitely expressed excuses at times for it as well. I think this is actually a very common experience for transfeminine people. Not universal, nor does it mean those things have any innate value.
I guess it can be interpreted differently by different people. Though I do feel that at least in the original communities it is posted in on Reddit and Twitter it’s very likely it’ll be read as invalid or a poor excuse in general, rather than them covering their own motivations. I say that because in the Reddit versions (and a tiny bit the Twitter versions as well) there is generally more of a sentiment that gender non-conformity is a “sign” or are “signs” and they generally are very dismissive of reasons like the ones given. They have a poor record of following the egg prime directive and I have in fact seen on r/traa2 people blatantly shit talking it and saying they would never follow it 😬.
So while I do get that there can be different interpretations, a generalized one (the not so great one) and a personalized one (the better one) I do recognize the communities they were originally posted to on Reddit and Twitter, and I do know which ones they tend to gravitate towards.
RIght but see, the problem is that this does make a statement that doing certain things makes you trans, whether it’s going for it or not. As I said in my response to @[email protected] the behavior shown constitutes a violation of the egg prime directive because it makes assertions about another person’s gender identity. It also normalizes and to some extent encourages that behavior.
I don’t disagree with you that this community is for helping trans people come to terms, but I’m still not a fan of memes that normalize reinforcement of that idea in the way that is happening in this comic. As a GNC person it feels really shitty to be told that your gender identity is wrong by other people, whether direct or subtle. It’s one of the reasons for the egg prime directive in the first place.
It’s not reinforcing that idea. For the author of the comic, she played as women in games and later discovered she was one. You can play as whatever character you want to play as and it doesn’t have to say anything about you.
I always played as girls and women in games when I had the choice. I also gravitated towards books with female protagonists. Like the author of the above comic, I also ended up discovering my womanhood and transitioning. This community, egg_irl, is for trans people. Nominally for memes to do with things we did before we came out that now make sense to us after the fact.
Whether the author intends to reinforce that idea or not, the comic itself (having one character say “Honest! I just like looking at women’s asses better than men’s!” while the other one says “hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm no I think you’re trans”) very much does.
Also the other character is committing blatant violations of the egg prime directive by deliberately questioning another person’s gender identity in response to the person saying why they like doing something. This is extremely disrespectful to that person and dismisses their identity. The biggest problem is that even though this is describing something internal for the person, it is normalizing something which is disrespectful to the identities of others.
But okay, is it just the framing that’s the issue here? Would the meme be fine if it depicted an internal dialogue by the creator? Is it purely an issue because of the existence of the friend character?
I’m assuming this to be the case based on what the sidebar shows as the “egg prime directive”. Which in and of itself is a valid issue with the content. I think it’s a pretty uncharitable interpretation, but yeah I can see how it normalizes that.
I think that it would be significantly better had it been framed as an internal dialogue rather than external criticism. It might still be a bit problematic if it phrases the reasons given as invalid, rather than just not what it is for them, because even though to many people it feels like they said something stupid, they weren’t, those are valid, real reasons why people do it. The idea that the reasons aren’t valid as opposed to being simply not the reasons for themself in their case is also not great in the same way.
It’s possible that I’m reading it differently, but I see the reasons being portrayed not as invalid in and of themselves, but rather as being weak attempts at excusing their own actual motivations for playing as girls and women.
I also didn’t play as female characters because of their clothing options or their appearance being more aesthetically appealing. It was in fact because I wanted to be perceived and acknowledged as a girl and that was the closest it was permissible for me to get. I definitely expressed excuses at times for it as well. I think this is actually a very common experience for transfeminine people. Not universal, nor does it mean those things have any innate value.
I guess it can be interpreted differently by different people. Though I do feel that at least in the original communities it is posted in on Reddit and Twitter it’s very likely it’ll be read as invalid or a poor excuse in general, rather than them covering their own motivations. I say that because in the Reddit versions (and a tiny bit the Twitter versions as well) there is generally more of a sentiment that gender non-conformity is a “sign” or are “signs” and they generally are very dismissive of reasons like the ones given. They have a poor record of following the egg prime directive and I have in fact seen on r/traa2 people blatantly shit talking it and saying they would never follow it 😬.
So while I do get that there can be different interpretations, a generalized one (the not so great one) and a personalized one (the better one) I do recognize the communities they were originally posted to on Reddit and Twitter, and I do know which ones they tend to gravitate towards.
RIght but see, the problem is that this does make a statement that doing certain things makes you trans, whether it’s going for it or not. As I said in my response to @[email protected] the behavior shown constitutes a violation of the egg prime directive because it makes assertions about another person’s gender identity. It also normalizes and to some extent encourages that behavior.
I don’t disagree with you that this community is for helping trans people come to terms, but I’m still not a fan of memes that normalize reinforcement of that idea in the way that is happening in this comic. As a GNC person it feels really shitty to be told that your gender identity is wrong by other people, whether direct or subtle. It’s one of the reasons for the egg prime directive in the first place.
Sorry, I read the sidebar (egg prime directive) and now see how this post normalizes other people questioning someone’s identity.