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I'm glad you cracked your egg this way, and maybe I'm reading into this too much, but I really don't like reinforcing the idea that any man who chooses the female player option in a video game must secretly be trans.
Every time I boot up Sonic Advance I play as Tails. That's partly because he has the best ability and partly because he's by far the cutest, and the only thing better than playing Sonic Advance is doing so while staring at that adorable bean. That doesn't mean I secretly want to see him when I look in the mirror.
Same. I gravitate towards female avatars for the most part, usually because I just like looking at them more.
Sometimes it's more game specific. Mass Effect, for example, the stock fem Shep is just the canonical version of the character in my head. Had a cooler and more relatable face design. And perhaps most importantly, default masc Shep just really looks like every dudebro I've ever disliked in person.
Yeah, everyone's got their preferences, fo sho.
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 @AVincentInSpace@pawb.social 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.
Not to disagree with your general point, but the example you used kind of sucks. When neither of the options looks anything like you (or how you might want to look), and when they play differently, it's not really analogous to games where you make a purely cosmetic choice between male and female characters.
The funny part is that I didn't actually play female characters when I was younger. I'd go for longer hair and androgynous features, but I thought I had to make my character look how I looked at the time. I was honestly resistant to ever playing as a woman, because I thought I should only play as my AGAB.
The fact that I didn't play femme before made me doubt myself for the longest time. I didn't have The SignsTM, so I was just faking it. Turned out that my inability to recognize my own emotions was to blame. I feel gender dysphoria as exceptional discomfort and unhappiness with no obvious source. I felt like I didn't belong, but had no idea that being a girl could fix that for me. I only rarely connected the dots on what upset me and didn't get a hint at the larger picture till I was an adult.
Even though I didn't experience the comic, it did touch on why I didn't play as a girl: imagined judgement. The friend probably doesn't mean anything by his comment, with Paxiti only imagining him calling her an egg. It could even be that the friend isn't a person, but a reflection of how she imagines society will judge her.
In truth, dudes love riffing on their friends for not conforming like that, not because they think anything of it, but because they don't. It took me years to understand that there was usually no hidden meaning and you're just supposed to act like it's meaningless as well. If you take it to heart, then they find it weird. I feel comforted when I talk openly about my feelings, but male dominated social groups often find that scary. It's not universal, but in larger groups, it becomes nearly impossible to have personal conversations.
Games where I wanna project myself on the character I make the character look like me (or at least how I imagine myself).
But some games, especially MMOs, I like to make my character look wacky or attention grabbing.
I'm in agreement, I'm not a fan of this implication it really feels like it's just enforcing gender stereotypes for no good reason. People should be able to play whatever character they find most appealing to them, whether that be functionally, aesthetically, or even sexual attractiveness.
Seriously, video games are one of the perfect mediums, we can play them how we want and make what we want out of them. This idea enforces an extremely restrictive perspective on a medium which ultimately is much more adaptive than any other form of narrative medium. Stop trying to attribute a deeper meaning to people using the assets and code in these make believe worlds the way they see fit as opposed to the way that was indended, or the way that YOU think it SHOULD be. (that last part was directed towards OP and people who believe the message of this post.)