crossdressing, and the 'egg problem'

i've been on the internet a long time. i've been bisexual a long time. i've had access to lgbt+ spaces for a long time. eventually, the three of those met somewhere in the middle when i bought my first thigh highs sometime around covid, after i finished secondary school (high school for the non-uk'ers). at the time, they were mainly a joke and a lost bet from one of my vr friends, but what i didn't know was that that would send me down a bit of a gender expression journey that i wasn't quite prepared for?

to address the title, no, this is not me coming out as being trans. i'm entirely comfortable being a guy, and that isn't something i think is likely to change, my self-image is way too masculine for that me to really think that's a factor in my life. it is however, addressing something related, which is the weird phenomenon i've seen around the web in social circles about calling people an 'egg'.

for the uninitiated, in lgbt circles, 'egg' is a term referring to someone who others think is a trans person who's either in denial about being trans or hasn't fully realised it themselves yet. it's a common phrase, calling someone an egg, and it's something i think a lot of people have laughed about in the community for a number of years (myself included).

it can be a wonderful thing that can trigger someone to look reflectively at themselves and realise that they're a different gender than their genitalia suggests, and i'm not denying that; i'm not trying to say "stop calling people egg!!!! 👹👹" or anything. it has its use, for sure.

what i want to talk about today is how that term can affect someone more like myself, who likes to try and express themselves more as the opposite gender from time to time, but still feels like their birth-assigned gender in their head and heart.

this post was broadly inspired by an argument that broke out on bluesky between me and someone else.

the post may initially have been a joke, and i'm not blind to that fact, but on the day, something about this rubbed me the wrong way. here was the post that was in reply to;

i fully appreciate that it's not a huge stretch if you don't know me to jump to "that guy's a huge egg" or similar. i'm talking about the fact my partner had done my nails and i was comfily sat in what i'd definitely view as girl's clothes.

however. that's not the case for me. as i said before, i'm just a guy who likes to express himself femininely from time to time.

usually i can just laugh off these kinds of jokes, and that's entirely fine in my head. i'm not sure why this time was enough to set me off, and i apologise to nooby for the curtness of my reply, but i said this:

what i want to talk about here is that (while i should have worded it better) having stewed on it more, i still feel icky about that comment. i think online (and offline, i have friends irl that do it too), there's a tendency to map men being outwardly feminine to "that guy must be a closeted trans woman". whether they mean it as a joke or not, it has, more recently, started getting to me a bit. while there's the occasional person just replying with a compliment or something unrelated, like this reply to a skeet where i was pointing out my vape and my can of monster with my nails in-frame as "boy dinner";

there's also the "girl, admit it" style of comment. more often than the other kind.

in my mind, the way it has affected me feels like it's starting to take a bit of a toll on my mental health.

if i do only masculine things, my brain is just meh. if i do more femme things, my brain likes the change and enjoys that i feel cuter on that day. however, if i then talk about it online or show something, even accidentally, i then get people telling me i'm a different gender than what i feel i am. which in turn leads to a feeling that me doing this without being trans in any capacity, or genderfluid, etc. is just invalid to do, and by extension, my enjoyment of being a more feminine boy (not saying femboy because i don't think i fit in that venn diagram) is also invalid.

and i don't want to write this entire post and have it just read like egg fanfic. i'm no wattpad author. well... anymore at least. for the record, i did at one point contemplate it all. i bounced the idea in my head of "am i trans?", landed on "no, but maybe non-binary?", then back to "no, i'm a guy. i just like to be feminine sometimes", pretty concretely. not to say i never get quick bouts of light gender dysphoria, i have done and still do, but they're just that; quick. then i think more about it and realise "nah, that's still not me", and land on a middle ground where i cross-dress and i'm happy with that for the most part.

feeling like the gender expression journey you've been on for the past 5 years of your life is invalid because you didn't land on the right option (i.e. not trans in my case) sucks. it's a lonely island where you say "but im not tho" and get met with "haha sure, take the estrogen", and not an island i enjoy living on.

in all, the buildup of this over the last few months seems to have affected me more than it has in the past. i'm at a point where because of this feeling of invalidity, i feel less drawn to the feminine side of my life, and it's like a door is slowly closing on that for me. it's a weird position, because this is something i've built up over years, and something i was starting to get more comfortable with, but now my brain can't reconcile the two. i know i shouldn't really care what others think, etc. etc. but i finally made a chunk of progress with it recently by crossdressing among some lovely, accepting friends , and then going out dressed up for halloween . but now i feel like i can't identify with it as much anymore. it's always been something i felt in phases, but it's never been something that i've just felt like shutting down before.

i don't know, this post started as a "hey, let me talk about this" and ended up becoming a "fuck it let me pour my feeling into badly-written rants in quick succession" post, but i still feel like i want to post it.

in short, to those of you who've called me an egg before, i still love you all, and i don't want this to come off as a callout post (not least of all to @lenooby09.tech , please don't take this as an attack on you my friend), more just an expansion on my feelings, and a request for that to stop happening as much unless genuinely a joke, with an explanation of why.

i don't know what the future holds for me w.r.t. gender identity or expression, i'll be honest. i don't think anyone can. even trans people sometimes choose to detransition, i'm not ruling out any possibilities in future. but for the time being, i'm happy being a guy, and trying to deal with the mental overhead of reconciling that i have a feminine side i'm starting to lose passion for.

(this is not a cry for help either im good guys, just... working through some stuff <3)

also this is a new blog for my stuff i don't necessarily want to shout into my bigger account, like self-expression shit. i'm scared like that

kthxbai <3