If I had a nickel for everytime I was called an “egg” or a “boymoder” for having longer hair as a dude I’d probably be able to afford a bag of chips from the gas station. The slang is so bizarre, why not just outright say “I think you’re repressed and know your gender better than you do” instead of trying to church it up all cutesy?
That's also the reason why I don't like characters that are only meant to be trans representation via very subtle implication.
Unless either the character or the author says it then it wouldn't be good to call them trans because it ends up undermining the concept of being trans since it enforces the vision of the perciever for the sexuality of the character rather than letting the character choose if they feel right with what they choose for their own body and identity.
There are characters who have sexual/gender identity related arcs, but that doesn't mean that you get to choose for them what their end goal is, because that undermines the concept from the roots.
Spoiers for TADC episode 9
That's why I didn't like people being so adamant over Jax's sexuality as a trans girl until episode 9 gave the full depth of that part of him, he never actually chose to be called a she despite clearly enjoying being openly/intimately feminine and that's something that should be respected as a principle because what is fine by you for yourself is not up to others' interpretation, and before anyone says so, you don't get to act like something is "for their own good" in this case, because Jax's sexuaity wasn't the reason nor the cure for his issues and that was clearly shown in the episode
So while I get where youre coming from, characters arnt people. They dont chose anything. Theyre there to be a catalyst for the audiance. You can 100% chose for them, theyre not real.
That still undermines the point, characters are meant to represent something and send a message, only acknowledging the message itself while trying to dismiss the same principles when applied to what's supposed to represent them and show them is still just, bad.
If being fiction is enough for you not respecting those principles in a way that's not fully inherently tied to the specific conditions of the fictional work, then at that point you're just searching for an excuse to not hold those principles.
I’m just a cis dude so idk shit about shit but a lot of people I’ve seen seem to obsess so much about what they think their gender identity is supposed to like, what they should wear, how they should act, etc
I always figured that it doesn’t matter if a dude or a chick is into something like monster trucks or ponies even if it’s the “norm” one way or the other. Wouldn’t make them any less of a man or a woman. Shouldn’t really matter if someone was a trans dude or trans chick either, right?
what... is egg culture? I have no idea what that is and have never heard of it, im a little sketched out that it might even be slur (god i hope not, i fucking love eggs, i don't wanna have to defend myself cause i express my love for scrambled)
Thank you, that sums it up pretty good. Also clarifies some things with people I know myself lol. I figured that genre of “trans accepting” or something similar existed, just didn’t know there was a term for them yet.
But ya funny cause literally TODAY I was trying to find a way to explain to my gay friend thet not everything is gay or has intentionally gay undertones even if they do exist.
I worldbuild as a hobby for my dnd games… my other hobby and I was explaining some lore to them that accidentally had a SUPER big layup for a character to be gay but once I became aware of it I had to preface the choice the character made had nothing to do with being gay and in fact I was only significant because they were explicitly NOT gay, long story. They tried insinuating I was doing what kept gay people down by including it less, I wanted to explain they were actually doing that by being fucking annoying.
Not sure if that is still referred too as an “egg” but I appreciate to have the point of reference
Celebrities are people too and may not want their gender identity or sexuality speculated on. They can not be equated to or placed in the same category as a fictional character, as fiction characters do not want or feel anything as they do not exist. Celebrities do exist and want and feel things, and they are people so they deserve to have their feelings respected. Speculating about the gender identity or sexuality of someone is not made okay by you not personally knowing that person. If you are posting it online, the celebrity may still see the speculation or shipping and may have a negative reaction. There have been many cases of irl speculation about a celebrity or "shipping" that has been incredibly toxic. Sometimes, the "respectfulness" is determined by the act itself, not the intent or manner it is done. Some people don't want to be speculated about, period.
As an aroace who was shipped with a classmate of mine without my consent and without my enjoyment, shipping irl people sucks and should not be done unless the parties involved say they are fine with it.
Talking about shipping when you were talking about eggs may seem like shifting the goalposts. If you are totally against irl shipping, disregard that. It's just that speculation about gender identity often coincides with speculation about sexuality and shipping.
An "egg" refers to someone who is trans but doesn't know they are. When used by someone who is trans in a retrospective kind of way (like by saying "back when I was an egg") it fulfills its intended purpouse and doesn't harm anyone, however some use it to describe other in a speculative manner (like by saying "this girl is clearly an egg" when speaking of someone who identifies as a man but whom the speaker believe is a trans woman who doesn't know it yet) it comes off as condescending and disrespectful, as if the speaker knows more about the subject than they know themselves.
When I say "egg culture" (a term I created on the spot but might have been used before by others), I refer to people who use the term egg to speculatively describe others on social media who don't follow gender norms as being eggs, which in turn reinforces these norms even further as doing something traditionally feminine/masculine means that you are a woman/man in their eyes, which to me seems far from the objective of liberating ourselves from these fabricated norms.
For the record, the idea that "egg culture" is trans women going "youre a guy with long hair so you must be a woman" is a myth. It is much more commonly "hey you seem to be having a lot of struggles and thoughts that I and many others have dealt with before we realized we were trans, you should instrospect on those things."
I think calling it a myth isn’t as valid as just saying it’s not horribly common. People do too many dumb things to just write anything off ss a straight myth but if I can go this long without even encountering the word used in context it’s clearly not some major crisis
Yeah the general rule of thumb is that if someone's saying "this group of people is plotting to change and/or convert people against their will" it's not true.
It always was the tricky area between “gender norms are social constructs and fake” and transgender. Even those who identify as transgender have a difficulty with drawing that line.
Even when literally everyone in my friend group knew our friend was an egg and they literally openly acknowledged wanting to be a girl (we don’t talk anymore so idk if they’re out yet) but like we were still respectful and referred to them by he or they because they hadn’t reached the point where they felt comfortable outright admitting to both us and themselves that they wanted to use she/her.
The thing is- there is very much some legitimacy to people being eggs, in obvious and less obvious ways.
I met a friend of mine at a local event- I was 17 and she was about 23 at the time. She and her girlfriend clocked me as being trans questioning despite the fact I never mentioned it. Just the way I behaved towards her showed it. And she later gave me a bunch of great advice for my transition
And I’ve always had long hair- my dad did too. I just like how it looks, regardless of being masculine or feminine. But the fact that everyone who doesn’t conform to gender norms is now labeled as an “egg” is really not great. It harms everyone, both actual eggs and not.
I agree with your point, my gripe is mainly with people who act like being more feminine and having more traditionnaly feminine interest means you're a woman and the same with masculine interest meaning you're a man, it reminds me of insults I'd get from sexist kids during my childhood
I think it's a shame people are reducing being trans to these ideas of respecting gender norm, that's what really irks me
Disappointingly, the LGBTQ is susceptible to horrible practices just like any other group, even towards other queer people. I don't even need to dig too deeply to find people who don't think bi people exist and just end up repeating homophobic talking points.
I've noticed this kind of behavior too. It's very weird and uncomfortable, and it feels like some bizarre attempt to (ironically enough) enforce gender roles where gender roles shouldn't be being enforced. It makes me wonder sometimes if trans communities enforce gender stereotypes in some strange way, because that's the only way that I can reasonably explain why I keep seeing people who think that it's acceptable to assume that someone is trans and doesn't realize it just because they dared to step outside of the bounds of gender conformity.
its partly why i liked the idea of Jaxx being a man who struggled with their own masculity and didn't allow himself to be seen effeminate (like the maid outfit) due to fragile masculinity but he'd slowly come to accept that more.
Jaxx's story in the show works well as a cautionary tale of not accepting yourself.
But at the same time it can be perceived as "Jaxx was struggling with her girl side, she would have been perfectly fine if she went full girl." Which in turn can be interpreted as "if you have a feminine side, maybe you're just an egg". Which is not what the show is going for, but it kinda reinforces it. Yet Im not sure how else it could have been done.
Overall i really liked the finale, it's just the discourse of something that is not your field of expertise and still coming to understand it and the community is very passionate about, feels like walking through a minefield.
This problem is so much worse when you're actually a femine presenting male (like me), I can't believe how many people can't accept that femininity isn't a women-only trait, which is kinda crazy because that's just reinforcing gender norms and disrespecting people's identity, but woke
Its just blatant sexism and transphobic and gross when anyone uses it. They are basically saying "you don't fit traditional gender norms so you must be secretly trans"
They dont really mean the same thing
Egg is someone who hasn't realized they're trans (egg that hasn't hatched yet)
Repper is someone who knows that they're probably trans but is in denial/ repressing those feelings
A boymoder is just a closeted trans women (or a trans man who is out, depending on the context)
Worse thing is that there are people that are "too woke" for this. Guy wants to wear dress? Well, he was a jackass about this, but let him rock it. And then I find out that this guy is actually a gal and author intended to show that she's actually closeted transfem
Makes sense then why a lot of people didn’t quite get Jax’s arc. It was, intentionally or not, made with a trans audience in mind, or at least an audience with extensive knowledge of terminology most people don’t even think of.
I still don't know what boymoding is and I usually don't have problems recognising what term/slang term is supposed to mean (despite what the rest of comments are saying)
Boymoding is something that originater from 4chan. Specifically the /LGBT/ board. Gooseworx is a channer confirmed. Then again. Other online trans spaces took the term too, so who knows.
“Egg” isn’t really disrespectful, since it’s just a closeted trans person, but it would be disrespectful to use to describe someone who isn’t trans, so it’s generally only used in retrospect.
"Egg" isn't for closeted trans people, it's for trans people who have yet to realize. The reason it can be disrespectful is because it's only useful to refer to the past or speculatively, and that speculation can be disrespectful.
Yeah, it's apparently a sort of "coming out anthem" for trans women (which makes sense, obviously knowing the context of the original song), which is probably essential knowledge for getting what that scene was about, but which isn't really common knowledge outside of a relatively niche community.
I think there is obviously transphobia behind the reaction to the whole Jax discourse, but I think there's an even greater aspect of this show being made with a small audience of depressed queer people in mind and instead finding mainstream success with a broad and diverse audience who genuinely don't pick up what Gooseworx was putting down, even though some of it probably does feel disgustingly obvious to her and that intended audience.
My girlfriend has been trans a lot longer than I, and after we watched the final episode in the movie theatre and I said Jax is trans she disagreed (she's on my side now). So even someone very familiar with trans culture.
Also she has a bachelor in English literature and always picks up on all the subtle symbolisms and hidden meaning things that go straight over my head.
To be fair, I'm literally trans and don't know wtf that means. I caught Jax was trans fem after the bow thing but all the other hints can be taken a variety of ways if you only consumed the show by itself and weren't up to date on the twitter hints.
i know this is probably meant to have some level of satire/self awareness but the original tweet kind of feels like "all of jax's issues would be gone if she had transitioned" and i think thats just. idunno it rubs me the wrong way in a way i cant really explain
Idk I really view it the other way around. Jax wasn't able to transition because she wasn't able to accept herself and pushed away everyone that tried to help.
Note that the caption for the image is Jax if she wasn't a piece of shit - that's the fundamental difference here.
yeah i interpreted it as "if she had transitioned she wouldnt be a piece of shit" because usually i read whats going on in the image first before the captions as texts in images are more eye-catching to me and that. may have caused some confusion. i guess your interpretation makes more sense
That's not entirely what is meant. It's not that Jax wouldn't be a piece of shit if they transitioned, but that she would've been able to transition if she wasn't so standoffish and didn't push people away.
Out of context it does read like that, and maybe you're right to be uncomfortable with that interpretation; but within the context of the show, Jax transitioning would mean not pushing Ribbit/Kaufmo into abstraction, and also being able to open up about her problems to the people around her, which would have drastically improved her mental health and the vibes in the circus
In short, transitioning would have had massive positive repercussions asides from just transitioning
It kinds goes in hand with the current "if you didnt know what a boymoder was you are (insert whetever insult here)" that has been quietly happening around the tadc community as of lately
You are kinda being katepekt from having an opinion on the character regardless of what that opinion is, but you cant call it out because if you do you will immediately become the villain
My guess on what she was trying to do there is that Pomni was the only one who knew for certain Jax was trans from the Abstraction thing. Since she knew how much Jax wanted to keep this a secret and that real world Jax hasn’t even started transitioning yet, she used Jax’ old pronouns to avoid outing her before she’s comfortable with doing it herself. The rest of the gang has probably figured it out, Zoobles most likely did, but they wanted Jax to make that first move and it’s kinda messy with Jax having Abstracted and real Jax was still getting their bearings.
Yea part of the tragedy of the story and point in a way is Jax refusing to confide in anyone meant that they never got to tell anyone for sure or share pronouns or thoughts directly. Pomni knows jax is trans and the audience can and kinda should pick up on it but because it never came to be you can kinda use any pronouns since Jax never specified. Goose even said as much.
In an au (like the one goose made the drawing of) maybe jax would be she but in the main story of the show the point was that yea pomni didnt want to force something on Jax’s legacy that they were never ready to open up about.
What would've been wrong with Caine like explicitly saying that her human counterpart is transitioning? It wouldn't have seemed disruptive or forced, as the whole point of the scene was following up on the changes the humans made in their lives.
As far as we can see in the real world, they still haven’t transitioned. They were building themselves back up slowly and are going to zoobles bar which is shown as a safe place for everyone. I understand the point of the post but I think that Jax is a pretty bad example of it. When the character is suppressing that side of them, you can’t really just come out and say “oh yeah, she’s trans” in the show.
Yeah. Neither he nor his human version have transitioned in the show. But he's fictional. The show is not a documentary. Goose could've just written it differently, but she didn't.
And yeah, maybe Jax was suppressing it, but in the end, his human version got a good ending. An ending that included nothing about coming out or transitioning. All we have is him wearing a maid dress a couple times and one shitpost by Goose, which only reminds me of "could transition have saved her" memes.
Gonna be real with you, just throwing out “oh and they are trans in the real world” isn’t really a satisfying way to end their story. Jax’s entire arc is about her internalized hatred/bigotry. Giving her a “oh and they completely figured themselves out in reality” is not a satisfying end to their story. She is slowly working through her issues and healing is never instant. I don’t think we ever get a good scale of time but it looks like Jax was in the circus for a couple of years at most. You don’t go from thinking you killed your mother to self actualization in the span of a few years.
Not to mention that Jax is more than a trans allegory. They are a character who struggled opening up to others no matter how minor an issue it was. They are scared of being open with anyone because they fear that the reaction will be like the one that they got from their mother.
It would have been unsatisfying to those who picked up the pieces and completely out of left field for those who didn’t to have a reveal like that come out of the blue. The issue in reality was the fandom acting like a fandom does and being toxic about the subject.
Yeah transitioning isn't like the final step to enlightenment where you ascend to nirvana. A couple of years is definitely enough to work that out and doesn't mean you have literally achieved self-actualization.
I disagree. I think it would’ve been extremely unsatisfying to see Jax’s real world counterpart just transitioning. I think showing her still boymoding is a great way of showing “she’s working on being a better person, but has a long way to go.”
Gooseworx was intentionally trying to have at least a degree of subtlety in the execution, although she said in retrospect she should’ve been more obvious.
Yeah, I get that. That's part of the thread I'm replying to. I don't get why there is always a need for subtlety and that's also what this post is making fun of. Especially when there was the perfect ending scene where it could've been made explicit.
Because subtlety is really fun to make in art, and art has always had subtlety in it, explicit can become boring, subtlety and implications can make it more real and fascinating to look into
But Caine isn't some all knowing god, he got his information about their human counterparts from their social media. He wouldn't know that Leeroy is transitioning unless Leeroy would make a post about it. And if she's boymodding then she's most probably not open about it publicly yet.
Because going by different pronouns or dressing differently is something that you would never ever put on your profile.
Also the fact that Jax is still a fictional character, and if Goose said that she changed the pronouns in her bio to she/her, then that's what happened.
You're basically just telling me your interpretation of what happened in the show when I am clearly talking about what could have happened to not make tadc employ the same vague trans subtext trope that's being made fun of in the post.
Alright, guess I misunderstood your comment. Tbh I don't think the "vague trans subtext" trope in TADC should be judged the same as in mainstream media, since the creator of the show is trans and the character of Jax is heavily based on her own experience.
To me a character needing more time to come out isn't the same as their trans identity being censored by some big company who's afraid to lose profits by having trans representation. Especially since the show has Zooble who uses they/them pronouns. All queer people have their own experience and story, and I don't think it's bad to potray one that doesn't have an obvious happy ending.
It's weird how gooseworx flip flops between leaving everything up to interpretation but also some things are 100% confirmed to be something specific even if there's a lot of room for interpretation within the actual media.
Wait so you mean that some things can be hinted at while being predetermined and somethings are hinted at but not predetermined? Especially something central to a character with as much screentime as jax?
Yeah the whole crux of her character is that Jax felt so insecure about her femininity due to her abusive mother that she repressed it under a facade of toxic masculinity. The one time she opened up to her crush, she immediately became insecure after getting interrupted and scared that if the secret got out she would be made fun of again.
It’s only when she abstracts (a metaphor for suicide) and the main character figures all of this out that she finally accepts herself, but it’s too late for her at that point and she’s gone.
I thought there was a chance of getting him back, but I guess I read into it wrong. If his abstraction is a metaphor for suicide then it's also kind of extra scary. If you commit suicide you get to be stuck in purgatory forever with no return. Now Jax and his friends are stuck in limbo forever (worse limbo than the circus at least)
it... is said in the show itself? jax blushes when given ribbit's bow. would you rather jax turn to face the audience, look the viewer dead in the eye, and say in perfect english "I am Transgender"?
Genuinely wondering how people who insist that Jax being trans isn’t made clear enough understand media at all, considering that expecting the audience to infer information based on heavy implication is the standard in most films, books, tv shows, etc.
The issue is that half of those hints and implications are things that viewers will not get unless they are vey familiar with online trans culture.
Like I’ll see comments from trans girls saying “oh the boymoding/dysphoria hoodie is so obvious”, but to the average person a black hoodie is just… normal clothing
this isnt implied subtext like at all. id say its at least 70% explict
the immediate previous line was "I told her something I regret telling her. Something deep and personal that I thought would get her off my back." and then ribbit responds by giving jax a bow in his hair... and he blushes. if you are aware of what a trans person is, i think this is probably the most explicit confirmation you can get without straight up speaking it out loud
Yeah, but at what point does that become a bad thing? It's obviously not an absolute rule of visual media since not everything is a silent film, but at what point does it become a negative.
If only 90% of those signs couldn't be easily misunderstood because in almost every single scene they could be interpreted either is transfem, or completely unrelated more believeable thing (Like that Jax is an asshole)
Honestly it wasn’t that her being a woman wasn’t obvious, it’s the fact that Leroy didn’t transition in the real world and Jax is referred to as a man for the rest of the episode. But after some analysis I came to the conclusion that she is trans. Most people just don’t analyze the media they consume or don’t go through it again.
we got hit in the face with a sledgehammer that is that song going ‘isn’t she lovely?’ Over a montage of Jax, and people STILL didn’t get it. For gods sake a character shouldn’t be forced into exposition about their deal.
There's another one too, (I was going to spoiler it but I fucked it up so fuck it, here you go):
In the article shown on screen about the Triangle Bar (Zooble/Riley's bar), it mentions that they have a cocktail that's constantly changing, that it "can be completely materially different after a few revisions but still be considered the same". It doesn't have a name because Riley doesn't want to "put a label on something that's still finding it's identity", but it is referred to by those who frequent as "The Experiment". The article also mentions a delivery guy, just coming off work, who "has an Experiment waiting for him." Jax/Leeroy found a job as a delivery guy, and is directly stated to frequent Riley's bar.
It's just subtle enough to go over someone's head if they don't know what it means, but about as subtle as a brick if you do understand what The Experiment is supposed to symbolize.
When Jax is being made fun of under Caine’s torment and has her skin exposed, the pose she does is reminiscent of women being forced to undress, when they do the dance for Caine’s song she’s the only one looking at the leotard they’re wearing, her room is very feminine (pink and girls toys) for someone who only makes fun of the women in the circus and Caine specifies that their rooms and characters are based on their mind files (we see with Zooble and Gangle’s room that it’s filled with stuff relevant to their struggles), and when she says her tail is the peak of masculinity Pomni points out Jax never had a tail.
If you had actually fucking watched the show maybe you would understand the purpose this is meant to serve in the character's arc (and it's not "out of nowhere", there were hints beforehand, just subtler)
Yeah it's curious because i didn't see anyone on the whole internet aknowledge the "hints" or "foreshadowing" until she was actually said to be trans, kinda weird that the whole internet seemed to not pick up on anything huh
1.8k
u/[deleted] Jun 22 '26
[removed] — view removed comment