The radical possibilities of hair
Compliments have a way of getting into your head. Taking bits of yourself and making them belong to other people. Like sticking a label on yourself that says “do not alter! People like this” that kind of pulls you back by the scruff of the neck to stop you from making any changes in your life. It’s funny how long they stick around. Now, I grew up queer in a strictly Mormon household so I’m no stranger to being surrounded by ideas I don’t agree with. Or even ideas that don’t agree with me, you might say it’s my Tuesday.
It’s still funny how long the fear stuck around. For me, it was my hair. That was the compliment I’d always get, that my hair was so beautiful, that I should never cut it. No! That would be a sin against the Lord (never mind that I already was in almost every way). I moved outside of my parent’s house as soon as I possibly could and found myself in University, a whole five hours away from home and the possibilities felt endless.
I was around people for the first time who had views other than the default “live in shame or go to hell”. I met new people and tried to balance my emerging queer identity with my religion, it didn’t work. After a couple of painful years, I left the church and my parent’s religion.
Still, the hair. I’d never have imagined the doubt and uncertainty that comes from breaking out of what people see you as. A few years after I left Mormonism I was sitting in my apartment, now far away from home and supposedly apart from any outside expectations. I paid my own rent, made my own decisions, hell I even did my own taxes but it was the hair that got me to think twice. It pulled me back in and held me back.
Even as I knew long hair didn’t fit me and that I’d always hated it, I hesitated. At that point, I was going to the hairdresser regularly to cut it back to shoulder length, maybe chin length. As short as I could get it without it looking bad. Even still, a little voice in my head was telling me that I’d regret it, that it would look bad on me or no one would like it.
I endured years of church-going just wishing to god that I could just wear a suit or do anything that would make me more comfortable in my skin. Except for this little part of myself that was nourished through the compliments I’d receive and the approval I’d get for how people saw my hair. This was what had me overthinking in my apartment two years ago constantly second-guessing and changing my mind over whether I could just… cut it all off. Take the plunge after damn near ten years of thinking about it. The indecision felt like it was killing me.
People ask me how I could realize I was non-binary so quickly. I realized I was non-binary then cut my hair and changed my appearance in less than two months. How could I make up my mind that quickly?. After two days of seriously considering cutting my hair (and about ten years of toiling in indecision), I finally made an appointment at a barbershop the next day. I went in that day full of nerves and hesitant hope and I left with a literal weight off my shoulders.
It was an impulsive decision that I made for myself and no one else, that had my body practically vibrating in anticipation. Shearing that hair off was one of the most intoxicating things I’ve ever experienced and was a physical signifier of me taking control of my life. I left feeling so light and full of possibility that there hasn’t been a single moment I’ve regretted that decision.
Taking control over my hair, after so many years of resisting the urge and getting so caught up in other people’s perspectives of me and losing myself to that, was a radical act. By the time I chopped it all of, I had resisted the urge for so many years that it felt intoxicating. It felt freeing. When you don’t receive unconditional love in your adolescence, it’s easy to replace that with things outside of you. Getting validation through achievements, other people’s opinions, or really anything that exists outside of you because you didn’t receive the unconditional support you should have.
There’s an essay entitled “Buzzcut season”, from the book Becoming Dangerous. The whole thing is worth a read but this quote sums up my feelings on the impact of cutting your hair short/shaving your head.
“Every time it felt like an affirmation. That yes, this was the fate I had chosen. Every time it felt like I was saying to myself, yes this is my life, this is the right one. I loved how clean it felt to leave with a fresh cut, feeling soft and new and reborn, a few little hairs clinging to the back of my shirt — I loved those too. After all, who are we without our choices? Who are we without the decisions we make? For those months, especially the early ones where I kept my hair short and velvet-soft and tight, it felt as though I was literally shaping myself. Making and remaking who I could be, who was also the person I am becoming” — Larissa Pham
People who knew me when I was Mormon and now would say, “you actually have a personality now”. Which I would dub as a bit harsh but not inaccurate. My hair has been an area where there was such a disparity between what I and other people wanted. Hair grows back so it can’t be too important.
Breaking free of those expectations and showing myself that love and support and reparenting myself was a game changer. It was an affirmation of the person who I was, and who I was becoming. A very tangible act of investing in my joy, and making my body into a place where I felt more at home.
Changing your appearance sounds like an aesthetic, surface level decision. But when that choice is adjusting your appearance to fit you, even though you know it’ll make you less aesthetically appealing to society, is a decision that goes far below the surface. It’s a choice that permeates into the core of my identity, and makes it visible to other people. To this day, when I’m getting my hair cut my body feels like it’s tingling, liberated by the hair that’s been cut off. As they say “it’s just hair”, but in the end, it wasn’t.
