I watched a lot of harem anime in my teens and I always enjoyed only harem and didn't enjoy reverse harem as much, I said that I watched because I liked looking at the women more than men but maybe also I was self inserting as the man in those anime, tho loosely lol, those men are trash. Nobody likes the men in harem anime lol.
I have always related more to male or non-binary or genderfluid characters than I ever have to women. Ranma Saotome, Denki Kaminari, Ryuu Zaou, Hatsuharu Sohma, Kyo Sohma (no fruits basket spoilers please, I'm still working my way through the manga) and when I made a gender envy list all of the first tier were male (except Ranma lol).
I used to wish that I could have ranma's 'curse', how much I would appreciate it and how easy it'd be to just stay one gender in the real world outside of ranma 1/2 comedic rules. Wishing I had some way to switch between. I knew it wasn't possible, but I also wished that I could just become ranma. Maybe even to this day, I think I'd take it. Well maybe, I'd hate to leave my life behind but the allure of being ranma is strong lol. I had a whole list of fictional guys that I would choose to look like/take their looks and such. Ranma is the top of the list ofc.
You could certainly argue that often female characters aren't written very well in anime (or maybe the anime I watched) though I've always gravitated towards media full of male characters such as sports anime (tho just haikyuu atm, reccommend your favourite sports anime) and male magical girl anime. I love male magical girl anime and I am not really into magical girl anime as much. I love the feeling of how the team comes together in sports anime and just the friendship, if you watch it I'm sure you know what I mean.
I have always loved when a piece of media explored gender, when a character questioned their gender and had to have a journey around it.
When I was a kid and playing with dolls, I always wanted some boy dolls and always wanted the boy dolls to have put some effort in them or boy ponies t.When I got my first boy monster high doll, neightan rot, I was so excited as this was the moment I'd been waiting for. I still really love that doll.It was the same kind of feeling when I got my first big brother pony.
In karaoke songs where there was a girl and guy part, I always used to volunteer to sing the guy and go all out. When singing with myself I'd sing both parts and change my voice to imitate the voices as close as possible.
Thinking about how in early highschool the school I went to decided it'd be a good idea to do ballroom dancing classes with a bunch of like 12-13 year olds lol. But we had way more girls than boys. And I was so excited everytime I had to be in the guy position. Even tho all the other girls hated it. And even when my partner I got paired with hated having to dance with a girl lol. For me I think it was less about the dancing iirc. And more about how I was put in the guy role lol
I used to remember my dreams more than I do now and I remember a dream where it was a zombie apocalypse and I was a boy and I had a girl best friend and we saved a baby from the hospital but then she left me with it to take care of it.
When I thought I used to have crushes on guys, they weren't really crushes but eh, I was alwayd attracted to guys that looked like me, with the same hair colour and eyes and such. Beginning to believe that may be gender feels.
I just kind of had a realisation moment I guess but after that realisation it's all the small things that clicked. I think the main sign for me though has been how right it has felt. I started exploring because I wanted to use he/him pronouns so then I did, in a supportive group of friends, knowing that if I decided it didn't fit everything would be okay. I expected to decide after a while that I'd just go back to my other pronouns, having explored the side of myself that wanted to explore masculinity or something. I realised that the times every month or so where I felt distress and nothing could calm me down except dressing as a guy or the fact that every character I relate to in fiction is a guy and that I'd in a heartbeat choose to look like most of the characters on a gender envy list that I made that are all guys or that I spent most of my childhood wishing I had the power to switch my gender when hit with water like in ranma 1/2. It's how I like the pictures of myself where I am presenting as a guy way more, how I actually like looking at myself then. It's in being told to shave and resolving to never do it as I like all my facial hair. It's how right after I decided to switch to he/him, I had the urge to go to the hairdresser so bad, so strong that I just knew I had to do it. Most of all, I think removed from all that, from all my experiences that's most important is just that I feel like I am. I just feel like who I am and who I have always been is a man. It's been really unexpected to me but it's felt so right so I'll keep exploring it until it doesn't. It's only been a little over a month since I started using he/him and less than that when I realised that I think I'm trans, I'm still getting used to all of it and I have to actively tell myself to slow down because of how right it feels now that I have started to explore myself and accept myself.
5th month 2024 - I realised that I have so much ahead of me but I am only excited for that future when I let myself be a boy/man in the future.