Gentle advice for trans boys:
If you often feel like you are not really “one of the boys”, like you are disconnected both from other guys and from your own masculinity, the first remedies that come to mind are probably somewhere in the appearance area (clothes, hair, body).
That’s not all wrong - a new hair cut or a comfort outfit can do wonders for your emotional well-being as a trans guy! - but an underrated area to work on when you feel that way is actually your opinion of other trans guys.
You may immediately dismiss that as not relevant for you, like “No, I do not hate other trans guys. I do not think that they aren’t real boys, this is just about my own feelings!”, and I believe you. I really do. After all, my younger self would have protested just like that if someone told me this.
But please hear me out anyway: society’s appearance-heavy approach to masculinity does affect us. And said approach is not only highly cisnormative, it’s also competitive.
What I mean by that is: when you say you don’t feel like one of the boys, you are probably not thinking of the realistic, diverse, wide range of boys out there in the real world. You are just thinking of a narrow (cis, conventionally attractive, stereotypically masculine) part of this huge group. Not because you are so superficial but because you are a boy. Society’s view on masculinity drags us into this silent but stressful competition to prove our masculinity (and that’s actually an experience cis and trans guys share, so in a funny way this very much proves that you are one of the boys!).
So, what’s a boy to do? Well, it helps a lot to actually interact with a wide range of boys (even if interacting only means looking at their posts online) - and that oftentimes means confronting any unspoken hesitations you may have regarding other trans guys.
Are you scared to interact with other trans guys because… they may be further along in their transition journey than you and you’ll get insecure about that? They may be more feminine than you personally would feel comfortable with and that feels a bit unsettling? You are scared you’ll not be able to relate to them, or they to you? They may not like you? No shame and no judgmental tone here. I have had every single of those thoughts before - and that’s precisely why I know it’s worth it to confront them.
It’s much easier to feel like one of the boys when you internalize how unique each boy is - no matter if cis or trans.
