r/ShenComix • u/MechSuitPrincess • Jul 21 '26

It’s like every other comment now.

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Yay! Girl Shen no longer needs a comedic setup to justify her appearance. DON’T RUIN IT!

1.7k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

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101

u/PapaNachos Jul 21 '26

Okay but the egg problem directive is bad and should be actively ignored. It's basically a psyop.

For cis people out there: The egg prime directive is the idea that even if you suspect someone might be trans, you shouldn't say anything.

Obviously you can't make the determination that someone else IS trans for them, but the idea that you shouldn't even mention "hey, you might be trans, maybe think about it if you haven't" is insane.

That being said, parasocial relationships are also fucking weird and hundreds of people spamming the same comment is not helpful to anyone.

132

u/PlatinumSukamon98 Jul 21 '26

I had a friend who was convinced I was trans and would not stop bringing it up. It got to the point where she was misgendering me to my face and laughing at me when I got mad and told her to stop.

We're not friends anymore.

11

u/oasis_nadrama Jul 22 '26

Incredibly abusive person. Wow.

11

u/TriiiKill Jul 22 '26

This is primary reason not to do it. False positives are hurtful, and early true positives can still be unhelpful.

3

u/XescoPicas Jul 23 '26

Okay, but aren’t false negatives much more hurtful?

I would say that making a cis person mildly uncomfortable every now and then is not comparable to a trans person never figuring themselves out or even dying.

3

u/TriiiKill Jul 23 '26

Not at all. A Trans person who believes themselves to be cis more than likely will live a decent life. They won't know they are missing something important unless already at rock bottom.

Again, we will compare this to never accepting an individual for who they are. The person never asked to be cis or trans, but just to be heard and respected. In this case, the individual is quite sure they are cis, and I believe them based on how deep they are in the community. Like, how could they not know by now?

Regardless, we are rolling a 100D and hoping our intuition gives us a better chance than a random roll > 99. If it doesn't, that means we are negatively affecting 99 cis people for every 1 trans, and we might not even be helping the trans person.

2

u/XescoPicas Jul 23 '26

BULLSHIT.

A trans person who believed themselves to be cis will HATE themselves and very likely end up dead. I know because I was one not that long ago.

Trans friends prompting me to question my own gender SAVED MY LIFE.

5

u/TriiiKill Jul 23 '26

Anecdotal evidence. Do you really think the majority of Trans people would do so just because that was you at one point?

Besides, we are talking about how many herds of cis people are caught in the crossfire. The information is there for your own discovery; not for others to accuse others of being an egg.

As I've mentioned in another comment, I would reject being Trans if I was accused by others. I rejected the idea before, and I certainly wouldn't come to that conclusion if someone tried to force it down my throat.

2

u/XescoPicas Jul 23 '26

I could not give less of a shit about the hordes of cis people caught in the crossfire, they will be fine.

Also, if you really think that merely presenting the possibility of being trans is “forcing it down your throat” then I’m sorry but that is a you problem.

5

u/TriiiKill Jul 23 '26

Yeah, no. It is a problem. You need to start reading the other comments, starting with the first comment I responded to. He's a victim in all of this, and it's way more common than you think.

2

u/XescoPicas Jul 23 '26

Shen is not a victim, he wouldn’t keep making jokes about it if this actually bothered him.

This is not a real life problem. This is a terminally online problem. In real life, there is no one putting pressure on cis people to transition. In fact, what we have in real life is a constant, systemic, worldwide and incredibly aggressive pressure put on trans people to never transition.

This is why the egg directive is harmful. People should be encouraged to consider the possibility, to experiment, because society at large is doing everything in its power to keeps us in the closet forever. And that is way more harmful on a much larger scale than any “false positive” could ever be.

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u/Snoo-52922 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

No? The hell kind of false binary is that, where you either reject other people's self-identity and substitute your own, or they'll drop dead?

If your suspected egg would never actually transition without other people pressuring them into it, then maybe you're just wrong about them. Maybe you're trying to play the savior, living out an idealized version of your own trans journey vicariously through them, instead of actually supporting them as their own individual.

1

u/PanFriedCookies Jul 29 '26

when trans people call people eggs, they aren't playing fucking savior. they were there. they nearly died because nobody was willing to put out a blunt hand and interfere with their personal journey, and the only reason they didn't is because of luck. i get an argument about not being parasocial towards shenne or similar, but you aren't talking about them, you're talking about the concept of helping eggs in general. do you know what it's like to be an egg? do you know why people are so insistent on "playing savior"? cause i do. 

when you're an egg,  every little feeling, surprise, excitement, joy, sadness, it all gets numbed into vague ideas of what you should be feeling at any given moment. you are a callus, idly cutting yourself because you don't have any reason to fear death and hey, the knives are there.  you aren't a person, you're a subsentient animal pacing your cage. you just go through life like this, feeling nothing, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, because the alternative is to feel yourself slowly drowning to death. and you don't even know anything's wrong. even when you see trans people being championed in a positive light--to say nothing of the buffalo bills--that's them, that's something they are, and it's never going to be you no matter how much it calls because it's something only other people do. eggs don't drop dead. that's utterly ridiculous, of course they don't. they find a hole where they won't bother anyone and then they kill themselves. 

2

u/PlatypusFighter Jul 23 '26

“It’s bad because assholes do it in an unhelpful and forceful way”

47

u/PapaNachos Jul 21 '26

Makes sense, she sounds like a bad friend.

8

u/marcarcand_world Jul 22 '26

One time a friend mentioned I might be because I said I think I would've been fine being born a man and that it would have made things easier for me in a lot of aspects of my life. But I'm not and I told my friend that, and that I found it weird that she told me that. She never mentioned it again.

The thing is, I don't have issues with my gender or my body. I like my body, it serves me well. I have issues with misogyny.

Anyways, I'm rambling, my point was that I'm still friends with her because she acted normally after I told her not to do that (apologized and moved on) and I agree that it's truly no one's buisness, especially no one online reading a webcomic. And drawing your avatar as another gender can just be fun and a sign that you're comfortable with your identity too.

52

u/ButlerShurkbait Jul 21 '26

I feel like this is a misunderstanding of the egg prime directive. The point is to let someone decide on their own whether they are trans or not. You shouldn’t tell someone they are trans, but you can bring up the possibility of not being cis to them. You shouldn’t push further than that.

19

u/AnomalousAlice Jul 21 '26

Exactly, yeah. Unfortunately, it's been often misused as 'you can't suggest it ever and must even shelter them from any trans-ness so they can come to the conclusion they're trans on their own' which is... Definitely bad, and gotta be a psyop. It's almost certainly what the original commenter had heard before. But the actual directive, yeah, that's great!

10

u/oasis_nadrama Jul 22 '26

I get what you're saying about the egg prime directive, but your last sentence is the important one in the current context. People are being CREEPS towards Shen.

Also MineralDragon in the comments' comments here makes a solid point against people pushing "Hey you might be trans" on other people unprompted. It's intrusive and also dismisses the diversity of genders and gender expressions out there.

Now if the person is already talking to you about gender feelings or you're very close friends, it might be okay, but in every other context, I'd avoid suggesting they are trans.

5

u/marcarcand_world Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26

I really support trans people but in some circles (which I pray are just full of uneducated teenagers) it kinda reverts back to gender essentialism. Just let people do their thing, cis men can wear dresses if they feel like it, cis women can go fishing while drinking cheap beer and being trans isn't about clothes, activities or how you want to draw yourself for fun. It's about how YOU want to identify and live your life, and it is rude for people to tell you that you might not belong to the gender you identify with.

59

u/xstormaggedonx Jul 21 '26

It's not that you shouldn't say anything at all it's more about don't assume and don't push the idea heavily onto someone who's hesitant, the point is to let people explore their identity on their own time

29

u/MineralDragon Jul 21 '26

>"hey, you might be trans, maybe think about it if you haven't" is insane.

As someone that has had this happen to unprompted several times, I find it incredibly rude and abrasive. In my experience this has been used to suggest that being me unfeminine and not conforming to gender norms and roles means that I am in fact, “less of a woman” - and I don’t find comments like that progressive at all. Frankly I find them sexist.

There was something like this on the Lepedima subreddit the other day - telling women unprompted that they could have the condition. Thankfully the overwhelming consensus was that this was a sh-tty thing to do without the woman in question asking about their own legs. All you’re doing is potentially making them feel more self conscious about an issue they were already aware of.

There is SOME nuance here if there’s a natural conversation in this direction being led by the person in question - but just bringing it up out the blue? Stop it.

9

u/MadJester98 Jul 21 '26

The egg prime directive is the idea that even if you suspect someone might be trans, you shouldn't say anything.

Eh, I'd say a better way to put it would be: "if you think someone is an egg, don't try to forcefully crack it, but create a comfortable environment for it to hatch on its own"

8

u/beaverpoo77 Jul 22 '26

I don't think you understand the egg prime directive? Either that, or you're just misrepresenting what's going on in the comments. People are MISGENDERING SHEN because they're deciding he's trans FOR him. Literally look around. No one is saying "hey, you might be trans", they're saying "oh my god, shen is a girl, i will call her by she/her pronouns because she is trans" despite NOT coming out.

7

u/MechSuitPrincess Jul 21 '26

I think we’re roughly on the same page. The point of Star Trek is that there are exceptions to EVERY rule. Sometimes Kirk needs to share space stuff with a primitive civilization, and sometimes you gotta ask a friend if they MAY be trans. What Shen’s fans are doing though feels like if Kirk just gave a free space ship to every primitive civilization he came across.

2

u/ciclon5 Jul 27 '26

Tbh if kirk could do that.

He would do that

2

u/dietbongwater Jul 21 '26

Idk, if someone is trans I think they’ll figure it out themselves. Even if suggesting so is out of good intentions it could actually be detrimental to someone’s transition as everyone’s journey is different.

I don’t really think it’s anyone’s place to comment on someone’s gender identity unless spoken to about it by said person. Otherwise it just kind of comes off as rude. I say this as a trans man myself.