Mastodawn

This post popped up on my feed via the always wonderful @ siege. I went into the Reddit original, read the responses there, and immediately had thoughts about nondirectivity. About what is sometimes known as the #EggPrimeDirective
https://masto.hackers.town/@siege/116178512093556616

Lemme look up what I posted before about this, hang on...

CJ "siege" Bellwether (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image this was just brought to my attention so im including it for any cis people who have read any of this and are curious what sort of shape the people im talking about are in:

Hackers.Town

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Tattie Mar 6

Here we go:
https://eldritch.cafe/@Tattie/116115211813976139

Tattie (@[email protected])

It's quite interesting as a #trans person and a counselling student, to see the #EggPrimeDirective drop right out of a famous work of psychological theory. 1/

Eldritch Café

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Tattie Mar 6

Most of the comments in Reddit seemed to be pretty directive. "Babe, this sounds pretty trans". "You should get gender-affirming counselling". "You can transition and live your hopes in this life, not the next."

And look, for sure, the thoughts in this post are so familiar from my denial days. I kinda wanna shake this person by the shoulders too.

But this risks just pushing them away. I remember how fragile I was at this point, how tightly I tried to cling onto my disintegrating sense of self.

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Tattie Mar 6

At the other extreme, the naïve reading of the Egg Prime Directive ("don't tell them") is that you should disengage.

"Well, whatever you're going thru, I hope you figure yourself out." ❤️🤗

No. That hurts just to type. It feels dishonest, it feels abandoning, at a time when they're being brave, when they're reaching out.

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Tattie Mar 6

So what's a response that is both engaging and nondirective?

What would you say here? (Feel free to offer as a reply)

What do you reckon your fave Tattie would say?

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Aura Everitt

@Tattie I think about this a lot and I don't have an answer I’m satisfied with yet. If it comes up, then I think my approach right now would be to make myself available to talk, and make it clear that they can ask me (a trans woman) anything at all in confidence, with no judgement, and no assumptions. I wouldn't do any *telling*.