I joined about a year ago. Reading about your stories gave me the courage to take my first steps out of the closet, after having spent over 24 years posing as cis-masc. I sort of left because my attention was taken up by other exciting new things, and by the time I thought to check back and see what yall were up to, I realized I had moved on.

It was fascinating to watch the constant influx of new members, alongside members leaving because their still-evolving identities transcended the "feminine boy". However, no matter where one of us ends up, I believe the shared experience here is that we were people who for a lot of our lives were discouraged from associating with femininity. On the other hand, there is the issue with ~unwelcome attention~ toward femininity. Anyone who has spent a good deal of time interacting with this and neighboring communities is sure to have stories of being harassed the way women traditionally are.

I write to you now to encourage those of you budding flowers to not make your goal the external validation of your femininity. Instead, consider aiming to style yourself as you would a video game avatar. Feminine aspects to your appearance or behavior are options that now appear before you, but by no means treat them as standards to adhere to. Aim to please yourself before pleasing the 93 perverts stalking this subreddit or the tens of thousands stalking the picture-allowed subs. Most of them still think femboys and trans girls are the same thing... but that's a whole other can of worms.