As far back as I can remember, I’ve always preferred doing things like “helping” my dad with carpentry stuff, pretending to be a knight hunting for dragons in the overgrown lot next to our house, climbing trees, etc. I also had plenty of dolls and a playhouse all my own up on the hill. I dressed up as Peter Pan around 4th grade or so, and even today, I’m more comfortable on my own in a hardware store than a dress shop. I do wear skirts and dresses from time to time. But my hair is short (more like in a mohawk, but ‘details, details’) and I rarely wear makeup and do “girly” things. Although, when I want to, I can clean up pretty damn well.
This all comes up because of a conversation about an article a friend posted on FB about this girl who wasn’t allowed to join a girls sports team because her hair was short. She didn’t look “girly” enough. I can tell you that if she were my kid, I’d raise all kinds of Hell with that decision. The conversation on my friend’s post turned ugly pretty damn quick with a couple of people who say they’re Trans Allies, but from their words, they most definitely are NOT. Now, I’m not trans. For the most part, I am perfectly fine with being cis-female (although I’d love it if they ripped out my damn uterus and other parts… I have to be on hormonal BC because of severe hormone-induced headaches that can last upwards of two solid weeks). But I respect my friends who are transitioning or have transitioned.
I’m more like the girl in the article. Throughout most of my childhood and teen years, I had short hair in some form. Rarely did it go past my chin, let alone my shoulders. It’s thin and fine and does better short. Hair does not define a person’s gender. Never has, never will. At least it shouldn’t. Right now, in my 40’s, I have this mohawk. I don’t spike it or anything, but I love how it is. If people can’t see past my hair and understand I’m really quite female, then they’re the idiots. I almost feel sorry for them. My hair doesn’t define me, I define it.
So, then the thought cam to me this morning after catching up on the comments on said friend’s post: Men see long hair as feminine and when women have longer hair, they’re seemingly more dateable. Now, my sexuality is really what dictates whether I want to date or not. Currently, I’m in a “get the fuck away from me” phase. Partly due to my C-PTSD, and partly because I have yet to meet a single man roughly my age that I’m even romantically attracted to. There are other factors there. Such as understanding my sexuality to its fullest and that it means you aren’t getting sex on the first date. Seriously… how old -mentally- are some of these guys… 15?
The amusing thing is that when a man has long hair (which, when done well, is pretty damn sexy), HE isn’t considered more feminine… he JUST has longer hair. So I see double standards. Maybe I just don’t hear comments about masculinity and long hair.
I have short hair. I’m not homosexual. I’m not heterosexual either. And nothing else “in between” … I’m asexual, and currently more aromantic as well. I’m just not interested in any of it… but my hair has nothing to do with my sexuality.
Really. It doesn’t.
I’m just me. Hell, even my sexuality doesn’t fully define me. It helps, yes, but it isn’t my lone defining trait. That list is really long.
I define me. I define what and who I am. Nothing and no one else does that for me.
I probably have more to say on this, but this will do for now.
~Amanda
The Great Penguini Speaketh 