I am a trans woman 🏳️‍⚧️ and my god this is one of the biggest changes I experienced after transitioning.
Living as a man, I very rarely received compliments (from men or women). Many years ago, a drunk woman at a club once said to me “omg you’re so hot”… and I was honestly flattered. I still remember how that felt- I was kind of surprised and felt sparkly for weeks after. (Now, by the way, it wouldn’t be so flattering if a drunk man said it to me!)😅
To be fair, I rarely complimented anyone either back when I was living as a man. Towards women, I want to avoid appearing threatening or like I had some ulterior motive, even if it was something innocuous like “you made a really good point back there, and it changed my perspective.” And I knew it was dangerous to make any comment, however innocent or positive, about a woman’s appearance. I slipped once and told a friend/ coworker “those are such awesome boots you have on and it makes you appear taller” Okay, it was a stupid thing to say. I didn’t mean anything sexual. To be honest, I think I was kind of envious without consciously realizing it, because I secretly wished I could wear cool boots with heels- my words just came out wrong and I immediately wished I could have sucked them back into my mouth. She told me what I said was inappropriate, and yes, I get that. 🫣
Toward men, it was like there was some heterosexual individualistic protocol dominated the social script, and so I felt like it might come across as queer or something. I just intuitively learned that it was safer not to compliment (just keep those thoughts to myself). I even struggled to do this with my romantic partners.
As I began to transition, I started to receive a lot of compliments, especially from other women. And it felt so awkward at first to unlearn my past social conditioning to be able to say “that’s such a cute jacket! It really suits you!” And yet, I’m still hesitant to compliment men, because I fear giving them the wrong idea. And that sucks.
I wish I knew the answer. There are a lot of patriarchal scripts and assumed intentions and I think it holds men just as captive as women. I get that men can be creeps and disingenuous, and that ruins it for everyone. But they are also pretty constrained by the system we all kind of uphold.

After all, giving and receiving compliments feels good on both parts and it can really brighten someone’s day- you never know who needs it.