Feminization of trans men

I’ve been noticing something for a while now, and I’m honestly not sure if it’s just in my head or if it’s a something others see too.

Lately it feels like there’s been a push to encourage trans men to be more feminine. Things like suggesting we should be femboys, encouraging us to be drag queens, to wear woman’s clothing or try to pass less, or trying to bring us into women’s spaces. To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with a trans man choosing to be feminine or doing any of those things. If that’s what he is comfortable and interested in doing with then he can and should.

What feels off to me isn’t the encouragement itself, it’s that it feels less like encouragement and more like pressure. There are just so many post that tell trans men, especially young trans men to be feminine that it seems to border onto grooming instead of letting them make decisions based off of what they want and what they are comfortable with. I will see kids say that their dysphoria is too bad to dress more feminine and there will be so many comments basically telling them to do it anyway, that they’ll get used to it, etc...

I’ve also noticed that trans men who are more masculine or want to be binary are shunned from LGBT spaces, like wanting to be binary makes us the same as cishet incels that support the patriarchy, or that wanting to be binary automatically means that we are insecure and hate ourselves.

For a long time I felt like I had to lean into femininity just to be accepted by other LGBT people, even though it wasn’t really who I was and it made me feel uncomfortable and dysphoric. I love the community and want to be apart of it but I don’t want to be forcefully femininize myself to be treated like an equal.

Maybe I’m wrong, and maybe it’s just been my personal experience. But I can’t help wondering if other trans men have noticed the same thing.