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.

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.

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?

@Tattie what ultimately led to my taking the idea seriously was some kind presumably-trans person saying nothing more than "well it seems like it might be worth interrogating that feeling, no? worst case you end up knowing yourself a little better" and linking the GDB

yes, in a reddit comment thread, immediately following a shitfight I'd participated in to push back against "haha men are trash" wherein I called myself one and then commented about how wrong it felt to say that

of course, my next reply was an extremely sarcastic "yeah, 'cause that's what I need right now, an identity crisis"

anyway,,,