I totally agree with the whole gender envy = hot being the case for a lot of people, because as a trans person who has such a weird experience with my own gender, I usually can only describe my gender as non-human or even just general concepts.
It really feels like fans heard the term and instead of using it for its actual meaning of “I am envious of how you are able to express your/this specific gender in ways I am not allowed or am incapable of for various reasons” instead of “I find you attractive but in a way I can’t describe without feeling weird so I’ll just claim it’s a gender thing.” Like I have gender envy for Ranboo the same way I have gender envy for the other male theatre kids at my high school, which is I wish I could present masculine the same way they can, but it really feels like everyone else is just complementing him in a way that they feel won’t make them sound weird.
And I know that’s not always the case, and that there are people who do use the term properly but there’s such a loud percentage that use the wrong term that it just always rubs me the wrong way.
'gender envy' in this fandom is just another way to call skinny white boy with fluffy hair hot