Femboy

Femboy (/ˈfɛmbɔɪ/ ⓘ) is a slang term that refers to males, usually cisgender, who express themselves with traditionally feminine behaviours, or—especially in the variant spelling femboi—to LGBTQ people of any gender identity who affect a "soft" masculine look.

[7] Along with terms like sissy, femboy is not used in a purely pornographic sense—it may be used to refer to a male involved in non-sexual cross-dressing or transvestic fetishism.

[9] The label femboy is used on platforms such as Tumblr to signify a gay sex role similar to that of a female in Western culture; it is related to terms such as boywife and pussyboy in its usage to denote "self-identified effeminate androphilic males who exclusively seek to be penetrated by dominant, masculine men".

Many femboys idealise a feminine form with a flat chest, leading some to use medicines used in gender-affirming hormone therapy in combination with substances purported to stunt breast growth.

Gleeson also proposes the existence of the femboy as a method to escape both internal and external transphobia, alongside "the unique stigma" experienced by transgender women.

In the academic journal Porn Studies, Emerald Vaught sees femboys as encompassing both effeminate cisgender men and, despite this lack of corporeal femininity, bottoming trans women.

In pornography, she sees the femboy as sharing the idea of a "youthful appearance" with twinks and as "represent[ing] an element of sexual fantasy" of transgender femininity.

[17] According to Aye Lei Tun, femboy culture was present in Myanmar's Spring Revolution, protesting against the ruling military junta imposed after the 2021 coup d'état.

"[20] An article in Social Media + Society has said the "femboy aesthetic" of the most popular content creators on TikTok "map[s] onto and reinforce extant patterns of gender inequality", and does little to challenge heteronormative views of masculinity:[12] When and if men cross gender boundaries [...], they do so while alluding to masculinities' hegemonic qualities, pairing their behaviours with lyrics and physical gestures that sexualize women and re-assert men's virility, bravado, and strength as a form of heterosexual recuperation.

The alt-right and anti-gender movement have deemed the emergence of femboys a result of the LGBTQ chemicals conspiracy theory, alongside "the existence of gender-morphing frogs"; figures such as Guillaume Faye have called the "effeminization" of society an example of Western societal decay.