This isn’t being silly - but I literally didn’t cry after turning 6, ever. I took that lesson to heart.

And then I started taking E, and it just came and it was embarrassing but now I cry. In private, in public, while I’m talking about something sad, when I watch a video of an abandoned puppy getting adopted and healthy.

At first, the tears came and I literally did not know how to deal with it (it had been over 20 years since I’d cried at that point). But my doctor pointed out - women cry in public, and that helped me to just go with the flow and let myself cry and feel sad.

Now, being silly isn’t as much a physiological reaction to a mental state as crying is - but it’s something that you could just start doing, embrace that it makes you feel weird and embarrassed, realize that this is something you want and that other femmes do, and go from there. Eventually you won’t feel embarrassed, but you will have to cross this horizon/climb this proverbial mountain of inner judgement and feel the embarrassment at first.