My long journey to finding myself (and the highly vulnerable community I've discovered in the process)

Ever since I was a little child, I have had desires and inclinations that have been deemed "feminine" (I was born male). It's particularly unhelpful when growing up in family highly intolerant of anything remotely related to LGBTQ+ people and/or issues. I remember when I was a child, I watched a movie where one of the boys dressed up like a girl, and I thought to myself "Hold up, boys can be pretty too? I want that!". Suffice to say, I wasn't supported in the least in that desire anywhere. I would carry myself in ways that are feminine and talk in a feminine manner (for example, I remember a few times I would call people "sugar", but every time people just laughed at me for that, because "Boys aren't supposed to talk like that"), because that is the way I felt most expressed me, but due to ridicule, I had to hide that side of me too. Eventually I hid this side to me deep inside my subconscoiusness, and just surrendered to the pressure fully.

One day, as I was going through puberty, I looked at my naked body in the mirror, and I froze. My prepubescent boyish figure has transformed into a womanly figure. I was overtaken by an intense fear. This seemed so "unnatural" (thanks to the societal pressure and brainwashing being done to me). I felt like a frankenstien's monster. Unsurpisingly, I did everything possible to hide this. I would wear super baggy clothing that concealed my figure. I hid my figure so well, that my mother, whom I haven't seen for year now, still remembers me as a "Man with an athletic build and broad shoulders", even though my figure would better be described as "Feminine, hourglass figure with narrow shoulders". Latter, I would discover that I am physically unable to wear men's clothing that wasn't super baggy, because the shape was so incompatible with my body, that wearing it would be physically painful. Those few days where for one reason or another I would wear clothing that was revealing of my figure, I would get cat called and mistaken for a women a lot, which pushed me to hide my body even more, because being on the recieving end of cat calling and sexual harrasment (which I've also experienced, but that's a story for another time) is actually terrifying, especially since it's never expected that men can get sexually harrased, and certainly not in the way that it would happen to me.

When LGBTQ+ rights became a thing in the US (my country of birth), I wasn't on board with it, not only due to my family raising me to be highly intollerant of LGBTQ+ people, but also because as a result of it, a lot of people would start trying to stick labels on me that didn't fit and made me feel super uncomfortable (most notably, a lot of people would insist that I am gay, but I've also encountered people who would insist that I am transgender. Neither of these labels made me feel comfortable, and I still feel uncomfortable being called that. Interestingly enough tho, I also have a pretty good idea what social stigma to being gay/transgender feels like, due to having these labels falsely stuck on me). Back then, it was easy for me to believe the narrative that LGBTQ+ people are just people "forced to go against what's natural by society" (aka, being cis-gendered heterosexual) by society, because I was facing societal pressure into admitting to be something that I am not. Had I stayed in the US and American society, it's likely that I would have never developed acceptance and support of LGBTQ+ rights.

I decided to move to Russia, my native land. I had many reasons to do so, but I think this social pressure that I was one of the contributing factors to it. When I entered my native land, I felt an intense wave of clamness overcome me. No longer was I living in a place, where people were highly unaccepting of my identity (at least the parts of it I was aware of at the time, but more on that in a bit). I had a chance to discuss LGBTQ+ rights with many people in Russia, and I was able to do it with a much clearer head (since I wasn't feeling anxoius about being called something I'm not), and as time passed by, my intolerant stance on LGBTQ+ issues was starting to make less and less sense to me. Eventually it all came crashing down. What didn't stop in Russia for me however, was how people would notice my femininity, despite my best efforts to mask it. Here though, instead of people assuming I'm gay or transgender, they would just tell me that I behave in a feminine manner, without really any negative conotation to it. I had two relationships with women (both of whom are bisexual), and both of them were super jelous of my body, and told me it is everything they strove for. Despite me not being fully aware of it, I found myself slowly sliding more and more back to my feminine side of behavior, and looking back, I am so happy that I live in a country where I was able to do so to a greater degree without judgment. A few times I would be mistaken for a woman, and it never caused any negative stories to happen, but rather sometimes amusing things would happen and other times I would be touched by the gentlemanly treatment I would get from another man, as opposed to the creeps, sexual harrasment and cat calling I would experience in the US whenever I would be mistaken for a woman. I also noticed that I would get aproached by women who would flip the traditional "gender roles" with me, and I felt so much where I've wanted to be all along. My relationships both romantic and otherwise all tended to be very supportive of my femininty, which allowed me to open up to myself more and more. One time I even decided to have a "fun experiment" (quotes here, cause it was just an excuse for me to fullfil my secret desires) with my girlfriend, where we would switch our clothing, and for the first time in my life, I felt what women's clothing feels like on me. It felt so ecstatic, wearing clothing that actually fits my body's shape perfectly, at that time I found myself wishing I could be allowed to wear women's clothing without judgement/false assumptions about my sexual identity.

One day, everything came crashing down on me. I was doing a lot of sexuality related questioning with myself. It started with some NSFW moments I shan't be mentioning here, but eventually it made it's way to me discovering that yes, I really like it when the "traditional" roles in a relationship are reversed, and I went through a period of overcoming the guilt about it. A few more times being mistaken for a woman, a little bit of analysis of my situation and my inner world, and after doing some more searching online, I discovered the internet term "femboy". Not sure if it has a "proper term", or if femboy is the correct term, but that is the term I am going to be using from now on. In a nutshell, a femboy is someone born male, who identifies as male, however has strong feminine inclinations and/or a feminine apearance. Unfortunately, it is a term that apparently came around only 1-2 years ago, and there still isn't enough helpful content about it. However, when I found a page on vk (Russian equivalent of facebook) of femboys posting pictures of themselves, they would get hundreds of likes, a lot of love and support, and lots of comments from men and women alike begging to let them take them out on a date. It was at this point, where my whole jelousy of women for being allowed to be pretty and feminine faded, and I discovered that rather than be jelous of women as a whole, it's the parts of society that force these "gender roles" on people that deserve the hate. I went from thinking "It's unfair that only women get to be the pretty, delicate, protected person in the relationship" to "Hold up, men can do this to? I need to get in on this.".

Currently, as it stands, I feel stuck between two worlds. I am a native Russian speaker, and can pass for a native English speaker since I learned English in an American school at a young age. In Russia I am allowed to be much more feminine than in the US without being judged or having false labels stuck on me, but even in Russia I have this feeling (which may or may not actually corespond to reality) that if I go a little too feminine, it might create problems. I have yet to test my waters in this aspect. It's been only two years since I've left the US, and from what I've heard, it's been a mess ever since I've left. Again, there's not a lot of information on this issue at all, but here is the information I have enountered online and while talking to people:

As I've experienced myself firsthand in the US, and as I keep seeing online, femboys do tend to get objectified and face a lot of the same issues women face in this regard. Femboys are percieved by many outsiders as nothing more than a fetish, and it makes me super uncomfortable that me being myself would make some people see me as a sex toy. Moreover, I have heard stories of many femboys who still haven't reached legal adulthood being falsely diagnosed with gender dysphoria, and forced to take hormones and do sex change surgery. I have also heard of many people in the transgender movement acting very hostile and attacking femboys, and I myself have been on the recieving end of this online. Not saying this is something that all transgender people do, but it's been happening more than enough to be a noticable problem in the femboy community, which is still very young and vulnerable as is. Femboys have also been known by the derogatory term "trap", because there is a common highly untolerant view of them going around, that they are guys purposefully trying to "trap"/trick straight men into wanting to have sex with them, or trying to "trap"/trick straight men into becoming gay, or something like that. I am scared of things like this happening to me in the US, so I would like to get a better understanding of what the situation is like there. Still don't know what to expect from this online community, cause I've recieved support, but I've also recieved hostility for being who I am when talking to the LGBTQ+ community online. Let me be perfectly clear: femboys are not people that feel uncomfortable with their male sex at birth. Some of them suffer discomfort from their body because it can be quite feminine for many of them, but this issue can and is solved by just accepting us for who we are. I certainly hepled me. Also, it is worth noting, that femboy does not imply gay. Most of them are straight, but gay femboys and bisexual femboys are a thing too. I have no clue wether this is some hormonal anomaly in our bodies or something to do with genetics, but regardless, we are all beautiful, and we take pride in being able to win people's heart's through feminine charm and beauty that some people who identify as female envy. If we can't find our place in society by being masculine men, then why can't we show off to the world our feminine beauty and our feminine empathy and affection, especially if that's what mother nature gave us? Is a man who had to deform his femininity to become this broken, pseudomasculine man, or a man who deformed his body into a woman's against his own wished really better than a femine man just being his true feminine self?

The subject of wether femboys should be part of the LGBTQ+ community or not is still contraversial. It can feel like a gray area to some, but honestly I hope that we can work together to find mutual support for one another. I think ultimately, femboys and tomboys alike (cisgendered women with masculine features) would like to see the abolition of gender altogether, so that terms like "femboy" and "tomboy" wouldn't even be necesary anymore, as people would start behaving however they want without thinking about concepts like "femininity" and "masculinity".