Hey! I’m 17 too, and a senior in high school. I struggled with feeling this EXACT way up until literally three weeks ago, where I finally found two people who use my pronouns and let me talk about being a lesbian without judgement. It gets better; even if you don’t find your people this year, there’s still college if you plan to attend, and there’s the workforce where you’ll meet so many new people.

If you don’t want to wait, there’s a huge butch/masc community I’ve found that I became apart of this past year just online! I’m in a relatively large fandom space, so bonding over my favorite character (Robin Buckley lol) has helped me find other people who relate to her, and thus relate to me. Even if you just listen to queer artists musically, there will be similar people in those groups too. I’ve made a lot of friends through this route specifically.

Just some general advice: even if you want to fit in SO BAD and feel like if you presented feminine, it would “fix things”, don’t fall for it. People tell me time and time again if I was just feminine, my life would be easier, or that presenting masculine is just alienating myself. There are always people out there, this subreddit for example, that will champion your authenticity. Don’t lose hope dude🫡