This post was submitted by Levi

“Almost cut my hair
It happened just the other day
It’s gettin kinda long
I could have said it was in my way
But I didn’t and I wonder why
I feel like letting my freak flag fly
Cause I feel like I owe it to someone”

- “Almost Cut My Hair” by CSN&Y

I am about ready to either take an electric razor to my head or let someone else do it. I haven’t had a haircut since the week of my Senior Prom back in late May. I seriously think I need one about now.

That haircut back in May was the first time in my life I had been allowed to have my hair cut short. Up until then my pleas to my mother to let me get it cut had been ignored for over a decade and a half. During that time, I had to primarily wear French braid pigtails, which made me feel even more uncomfortable about myself and my gender. I tried to hide my hair under baseball caps as much as I could, hoping maybe that would help to make me look more androgynous. I felt so disconnected and upset with my hair during those years that I tried to pretend that it didn’t exist…Leading to some extremely neglected hair (not cool).

My mother never gave me a good excuse for forcing me to keep my hair long. She would always say it was because short hair was difficult to manage, which is a lie in my opinion, or that I would get made fun of even more in school, which made no sense because short hair on girls and women is even fashionable these days. She never explicitly said it, but she occasionally hinted at that having short hair would make me “look like a lesbian.” Knowing that my Democrat mother thought like that just made me feel even more insecure.

Recently I went into a small panic when my mother pointed out how my hair is almost long enough to pull into a small ponytail. Then she proceeded to try to convince me to grow it out when I expressed my distaste and discomfort at that fact. (Mind you, my mother doesn’t know that I’m trans, though she apparently believes that I’m a lesbian based on her own prejudices and stereotypes.) I know that hair doesn’t make the man and I know that plenty of guys have longer hair, but for a pre-t transguy it can be feminizing and effect the ability to be read as male (and I don’t need any more difficulties with that).

Since getting my hair cut I have finally been able to acknowledge my hair as a part of me. I have actually been taking care of it. (I have learned that my hair is quite soft.). And I am able to style it in to look like how I want to, and feel more comfortable in my skin (or hair in this case). But I’m still up for a free haircut if anyone wants to give me one.

What does your hair mean to your identity?

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