femboys and egg culture rule

yes hello I'm not a grandpa but I am very confused I have never heard this term used for anything but these how did it become derogatory to ftm femboys

Egg in this context means ‘you’re really a girl but not admitting/realizing it yet’.

The trans person in question is the hatchling. Someone who is an egg is someone who has yet to hatch into their true identity.

As a concept it's a person that's trans but hasn't realised yet. Sometimes there are signs, which is where you might run into the mentioned situation of calling someone an egg. Experimenting with clothing made for women is a common/obvious one, but it doesn't always mean they're an egg. They might just like the clothing but still identify as a man.

The etymology? I dunno.

I think the etymology stems from the fact that an egg hatches into a chick.

I thought the point of this was to treat them both the same. If yes, you're not cool for invalidating two people's genders, if no, you're still not cool for invalidating one person's gender. Maybe I'm misreading but I don't see your comment represented in the meme.

I think the point of bringing up trans men is that sometimes people say that calling cis people eggs is harmless because you're at worst making someone in the supermajority briefly uncomfortable, and potentially helping someone who's trans figure themselves out. The point of bringing up trans men in this image is to point out that this argument misses how this attitude still ends up hurting trans people.

Even if I'm right about the intent though, I agree it doesn't come through that well, and I'm still feeling like this guess is a stab in the dark.

Like this?

If you want to call yourself an egg, you absolutely can. The Egg Prime Directive governs treatment of others, but you're free to call yourself an egg if you wish, since by virtue of you deciding to do it you are already okay with labeling yourself that way. Even if you somehow aren't okay with you doing it to yourself. I mean... misgendering yourself is between you and yourself alone.

If a person is gender non-conforming like a femboy, it is considered unacceptable to assume they are an egg based on their presentation not aligning with gender stereotypes. If a person is currently questioning or does not identify as trans it is generally not good to call them an egg either.

Really the only time is after a person comes out, and even then it can be iffy due to the connotations associated and the prevalent misuse of the term. Some people might not use the term Egg to describe themselves at all even before coming out in the past.

The safest use of the term is to describe oneself in the past-tense.

i.e. "I remember back then, I was such an egg"

Eh maybe it can be, but in the same way that directly misgendering fictional characters can get iffy or be unpleasant. Egging them isn't great either. There's a video by a Creator named Mako Ray that explains it better than I can. This one is about the character Felix Argyle from Re:Zero.

This isn't an imaginary scenario. FtM femboys and cis femboys do need to deal with these things. I've seen it happen for years, and even as an egg who hatched into a transfem, it always made me uncomfortable. It felt like an external force taking away the decision from people and enforcing new norms. It did not help me accept myself in any way, but it did give me more doubts to deal with.

There is no reason to do anything but affirm people's stated gender. If someone is a trans medicalist gatekeeping other trans people, they are still their stated gender. If they are a troll identifying as an attack helicopter, consistently affirming their facetious identity is a great way to make them lose interest. If you think someone who identifies one way might be better fit by a different identity, an enby who might be binary or vice versa, keep that to yourself. If you somehow do know better than the person, denying will not have actually helped them, but increased the likelihood of them doubling down.

All of that is to say that toxic egg culture is real and harmful. No identity is a terrible fate, only not having your autonomy doubted by the people who should welcome you. People define their own gender, end of story, end of discussion. No good comes of denying identities.

Oftentimes the pushback against it implies that being transfem is such a terrible fate that implying someone might be happier following such a course of action apparently makes you a degenerate groomer somehow just as bad as the transphobes who want all such people to either detransition or die.

I disagree with this statement. It's not the idea that being a woman/transfem is a bad thing, it's that the person on the receiving end of egg culture just isn't a woman/transfem. They identify as male and are perfectly comfortable as themselves but are told the way they present is a "sign" of being transfem and the way they identify isn't respected. It isn't wrong because being a woman or transfem is somehow insulting, it is wrong because it's misgendering to go against how someone identifies themselves.

Adding to the fact that some of these people are transmasc, so being told in that case that it's not wrong or insulting to be called a girl stings that much more because they know they themselves are literally a trans man and are being told their presentation is a "sign" they are a girl.

There’s just such a strange buried seething resentment to it all, but then again this isn’t even a discussion about people having nuanced one-on-one conversations about gender, it’s a confused imaginary scenario where someone is attempting social forcefem irl via brute force.

This reads like a bad faith argument, as if you are trying to imply that to question or critique someone else's gender identification based on their clothing or presentation is somehow acceptable. Or to attempt to debate their gender and ask leading questions is somehow okay. These are not imaginary situations, they are unfortunately quite common in many trans spaces online, and unfortunately in real life too. Maybe you have not seen or experienced the nastiness before, I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt there, but it is very much a real problem that GNC people, including transmascs and enbies face, it's not one of those "imaginary cis people problems", and trying to spin it as such is disingenuous and harmful.

The whole egg discourse puts a bad taste in my mouth as well. I've referred to my past self as an egg and then had someone tell me to stop using that word because it's groomer language. I've never violated the egg prime directive and never will, but I like using egg to describe my past self. However, now when I use the term I get worried because I just don't want to deal with people who have a stick up their butt.

Edit: I made this comment not fully understanding the word egg and the discourse around it and I let my emotions take the lead, which I really shouldn't have. I don't agree with the person I replied to. All identities are valid, none are a terrible fate, and it is a person's own decision as to what their gender is. People who say egg is groomer language when it's being used to refer to oneself are just trolls or ignorant and should really just be avoided. Even when egg is being used against the prime directive, I don't think it is productive discourse because it is just an accusation when they should have instead explained why the egg prime directive should never be violated, so I guess overall it's best to just not engage. Moving forward, I will try my best to take time to think instead of immediately responding to my emotions.

Someone doesn’t have to be doing things as bad as the transphobes to still be doing something that isn’t ideal, or something that makes other people uncomfortable in a way that has nothing to do with transphobia. It feels bad for anyone to get told they’re doing gender wrong, even if the person doing it is trying to be helpful.

It doesn’t mean anyone doing that is evil, it just means gender is a messy thing to talk about and understand. People can’t always see that what is very affirming and clarifying for them may be constraining for someone else.

An egg is a trans person who hasn’t realized they’re trans yet. When you do realize it, you’ve ’cracked your egg’. The symbolism for new beginnings and a new life is intentional too, IMO.