Helping others is difficult but worth doing
(Photo of 4 chicken eggs in a nest from Wikimedia commons)
Okay I feel the need to say something about the egg prime directive (the idea that you shouldn't interfere with an egg, that if you think someone is trans you shouldn't tell them, or depending on who you ask that you shouldn't even encourage them to explore their gender at all). I just realized there seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding that people who believe in the prime directive have.
Something I feel everyone should be aware of is that you have to be thoughtful and consider the specifics of a situation whenever you're interacting with anyone, that's how social interaction works. And of course this applies even more in higher stakes situations, such as informing someone that you think they might be trans. Aggressively saying "you're trans!!!!" to everyone you think is an egg is obviously not going to give great results. You need tact, you need empathy, you need context.
Are you having this conversation in private? Do you know how accepting or phobic the people in their life are? How close are you to them? What's their personality like? What is their understanding of what transness even is? Are you asserting or implying you know them better than they know themselves? Are they aware of the amount of variation that exists among trans people, such as some of us not changing our names, or not wanting every bit of medical transition, or not having dysphoria, etc?
I know if I had people confidently say to me that they know I'm trans before I realized it myself that could've pushed me further into denial. But if I had people tell me that it's okay to experiment with pronouns and stuff cause I could just change my mind whenever, or if they told me I don't need dysphoria in order to be trans that would've helped me figure things out sooner (I am dysphoric btw, I just didn't know it at the time). Every person is unique. Of course the approach you take when trying to help someone realize they're trans is unique each time, that's emotional intelligence.
Like I'm honestly a bit shocked at the implications being made by those who believe in the prime directive; that communicating directly with people is always going to have negative results regardless of how you do it, and that there is only one correct approach that works for everyone regardless of circumstance: indirectly just talking about your experiences as a trans person, but never more directly tell people you suspect they might be trans or encourage them to do anything.
When I looked into the directive a bit I saw a few people sharing stories about how they met a trans person who was pushy to them or tried to pressure them to transition faster than they were comfortable with, which resulted in them struggling to come to terms with their transness or transition. And I've seen one trans public figure talk about how their audience constantly joking about them being an egg and a grungler was difficult because they felt pushed, exposed, and like their agency was being taken away from them.
However I think seeing situations like these and concluding that we shouldn't ever tell people when we think they might benefit from transitioning is honestly defeatist and misguided. These situations happened because people failed to be empathetic and understanding of those they were trying to help. What we need is better emotional intelligence, more compassion, more tact.
What determines how the situation goes depends on a lot of factors. For me it'd be off-putting to be told by strangers that they think they know me better than I know myself, or to be told that if I enjoy playing as female characters in videogames I have to do other things like take hrt injections, not by my own choice but because other people tell me to. To me the basis of transness and what brings the most joy about it is the freedom that comes with it, the bodily autonomy. You get to do whatever the fuck you want and if society says you can't you say fuck you and do it anyway.
When I see someone who might be trans what I emphasize to them is "hey you know this thing society says you're not allowed to explore? I'm giving you permission to explore it. You can if you want to and you can do it on your terms. I'm encouraging you to because it made me happier and I think it might make you so much happier than you could ever imagine. You don't even need anyone's permission but I'm giving you mine". No pressure, no force, just trying to present people with a freedom they might not know they had.
Not everyone is going to feel that way. The things that might work with one person might completely fail with someone else because we're all individuals, not a hivemind. At the end of the day my main point I'm trying to make here is that the problem the egg prime directive is trying to solve isn't solved by it at all. If you had a bad experience with a trans person trying to help you realize you were trans I'm so sorry that happened, genuinely. But I hope you can understand that just because sometimes things go wrong it doesn't mean we should give up on helping our sisters, brothers, and siblings; they shouldn't have to face this shit alone.
Some also get frustrated with how long it can take folk to figure out they're trans but that doesn't mean you should forget about the tact and the empathy, that's not going to help anyone. The process of realizing you're trans is deeply personal and not something someone can force you to realize. At the same time that doesn't mean we can't help, we can, and I think we should.
Letting people wallow in their depressed dysphoric pre-transition states with not even the slightest attempt to help them is harmful. So many of us wish we could've realized we were trans sooner, and on top of that the world is so harsh the least we can do is give a bit of support to each other to make life more bearable. The least we can do when we see someone with that empty stare that screams of dysphoria is extend our hand to them and tell them "there is still time".