No, I Will Not Cut My Fucking Hair.
It’s Christmas and I could be doing so many other things right now, but damn it, I’m giving myself a day off, and this is something I want to say.
(I could be writing about being home with my family – who I recently came out to as genderqueer – and how they are trying but generally failing to use my desired name and pronouns, or I could be writing about my recent intense mixed feelings about binders, but… no, this is the thing for right now.)
I do not want to cut my fucking hair.
I have very long, straight, shiny hair.
It is sometimes very difficult to take of. When it gets tangled it can take a very long time to comb out, and washing and conditioning it takes fucking ages. On several occasions I have resolved to cut it for practicality reasons, or to dye it for attitude reasons (because damn it, I’m at university and once I get out into the world of work then I won’t be able to get away with bright green/purple/blue/red hair). I know that having short hair would automatically make me more legible as queer, or as non-femme queer. I know it would be easier to take care of. But… I fucking love my hair. It is, objectively, the only part of my body that I have always liked, or felt able to like, or whatever. This may be unhealthy and due to magazine ideals of the “perfect woman” (who has a slimmer figure than me, but she sure does have long straight shiny hair) or because I like/d hiding my face behind it (definitely true) or because long hair au naturel is full of potential to do things with even if I don’t do anything with it… but you know what, it’s still how I feel. My hair is my best physical characteristic, because even when I’m not feeling overweight/ugly/dysphoric it’s still just VERY. NICE. HAIR.
I know that keeping my hair long will make it very very difficult to pass as male outside of explicitly queer-/trans-friendly environments. This, in itself, angers me. My partner has long, shiny, straight hair of exactly the same colour of mine, and is near-uniformly read as male. In fairness, this is probably helped by height, broad shoulders, facial hair, etc… but still. Long hair as a marker of feminity IS UNFAIR. C.f. partner, Lucius Malfoy, bloody Sephiroth, generally the whole crop of dapper dandies that I wish I could look like.
I honestly have no idea where to go with this line of thought. I have short coloured wigs I sometimes wear. But I like my hair how it is. Is this internalised “you need to be a GIRL!”-ness or a desire to look “respectable” so people don’t stare at me in public (because oh god, social anxiety, sometimes I panic when I’m out of the house and wearing anything even slightly “different”, I feel like everyone is staring and judging) or just plain aesthetic appreciation? I really don’t know. As I have just been told, I am always second-guessing my motives and looking for the worst possible one. It makes things quite hard.
I sort-of want to write more about hair-angst, but I am sleepy and tipsy and doubt anyone is interested. But then, this is a blog, not a fucking newspaper column, so… I can write whatever I like? No, no, signing off now. Goodnight and happy Winter Thing.
Or maybe the issue is other people reading your hair as gender specific? Changing the way you look against the way you feel because you feel it’ll make it easier for other people to make judgements about you is a silly thing to do, in my opinion. I considered it once. I have short hair, does that mean I’m a lesbian? No. It’s not the way it works, and I don’t think you should feel like you should conform to a different stereotype! You have nice hair. It’d be nice hair on a boy, or a transperson, or anyone from the seventies hippie movement – hell, it’d be nice fucking hair on a mannequin.
Less analysis, more dancing.