@futurebird I really appreciate this post. I grew up as a cis het boy with small feet. Absurdly, I took a lot of shit for this as a teenager, lots of subtle and not so subtle attacks on my perceived masculinity. Decades later, I'm still healing from it, still trying to bundle up all the internalized masculine norms and the shame, isolation and violence that grow from those norms, and throw them out of my psyche.
I do have some gratitude for my small feet now. I realize they forced me to approach masculinity from a different angle, and I think I'm a happier and healthier adult man because of it.
All that is to say, solidarity from an otherwise privileged cis het man who has felt the sting of bullshit gendering!