Femboy
A feminine presentation on someone who is not a woman. Usually a style, sometimes a step.
Femboy describes someone who is not a woman and who presents femininely: clothes, hair, makeup, manner, or all of it. It is primarily a description of presentation rather than of gender, which is why the people it covers have so little in common with each other.
Most people called femboys are cis men who like presenting femininely and have no intention of anything else. Some are nonbinary. Some are trans women who have not worked it out yet, and for whom the word turned out to be a waiting room rather than a destination. All three of those are real and none of them explains the others.
The word comes out of online and anime spaces and carries a fair amount of sexual context with it, which matters when it is applied to someone who did not choose it. Used about yourself it is a style. Used about a stranger it frequently reads as an assessment of how available they are.
It is not a slur and it is not a trans identity. Calling a trans woman a femboy is an insult with a smile on it, because the whole point of the word is that the person is not a woman.
If you meet it on a dating profile, the honest read is that the person is telling you how they present, and nothing at all about what is underneath.
Femboy is not a stage on the way to being a trans woman
The joke that every femboy is an egg waiting to hatch is repeated constantly, and it gets it wrong in both directions. It tells cis men that their presentation is really an unclaimed identity, and it tells trans women that their womanhood was a style choice that went further than planned.
Some people do move from one to the other, and their experience is real. It does not generalise. The word describes how someone presents, and only the person inside it can say what that means.
Saying it well
Say this
- I am a femboy.
- Femboy, mostly meaning I dress how I like.
- He is a femboy and he is a he.
- Feminine presentation, whatever else is going on.
Not this
- So you are basically a trans woman
- Calling a trans woman a femboy
- Femboys are just eggs
- So it is a fetish thing for you, right?
Questions people actually ask
What does femboy mean?
Someone who is not a woman presenting femininely. It describes presentation, not gender.
Is a femboy transgender?
Usually not. Most are cis men who like presenting femininely. Some are nonbinary, and a few later find they are trans women, but the word itself is about style.
Is femboy offensive?
Not as a self-description. Applied to a stranger it often reads as a comment on their availability, and applied to a trans woman it is an insult.
What is the difference between a femboy and a trans woman?
A trans woman is a woman. A femboy, by the definition of the word, is not.
Can a femboy be gay, straight or bisexual?
Any of them. Presentation and orientation are separate questions.