hi i'm the original anon, thank you for the detailed answer and for sharing your experience with gender and masculinity, as a cis person this was very insightful to read!
of course i don't think what i described applies to all bttm sh/ bttm hj stans, i just got curious because those were noticably big groups i saw.
and also my point of view is someone consuming like 90% bttm sh and 10% bttm hj content, so that definitely limits my perception. that's one of the reasons i thought it would be interesting to hear someone's opinion who has different preferences than me:)

your theories align a lot with what i was thinking.
i also view hj and sh as both somewhat androgynous but in super different ways. with hj in the way that he doesn't really present either very fem or very masc, he's just kind of hj. and sh wanting to be seen as feminine sometimes and masculine other times. he also has some interests and tastes that are considered more feminine (perfume, the cleaning, animal crossing etc.) but i think some people fall too into stereotyping with these, because liking those doesn't make anyone not a man. and i really dislike it when people use sh's more feminine traits and run with them to make the ship heteronormative...

i also keep seeing that most like their fave to bottom, i certainly do. and it honestly took a while and developing some awareness of how actual gay couples do things to enjoy versatility

you're right on why feminization esp with sh is so popular imo. i'm a cis woman and I was very much one of the "not like the other girls" type that rejected anything feminine and only learned to reconnect with it as i became an adult. growing up a man liking feminine things or wearing feminine clothes was always a degrading joke, so seeing a man put on a dress or do his makeup and feel confident and happy with it is a wonderful feeling. men presenting masc is not as interesting to me personally as it's not something i resonate with or am very attracted to. i don't think it's less than though, it's just as valid! and sh's ability to switch between different expressions makes him super fascinating to me

a lot of it i think is unfortunately a numbers thing, masc nb people are a minority so their exploration of gender definitely gets kinda lost in the sea of everyone else's. and that really sucks i agree, this should absolutely be a place for all kinds of queer people and it's sad some voices get more drowned out than others