Things that Really Matter - Hair

I'm like Samson. I derive all my power from my hair. I'm really blessed in having quite an awesome, unmanageable, thick mane. Rich and dark and just wavy enough to occasionally drive me nuts.

But it's mine. It's my most treasured thing. I don't joke.

When I was a small child in the seventies, hair was the strongest gender marker I knew of. Little kids are essentially sexless until puberty hits, so the instant marker of boy or girl was length of hair. Girls had long hair, boys short.

Many of my early battles with my parents were over my hair. We disagreed vocally over how long it was, and how long it should be. The battle would invariably end with me at the barber, sitting silently crying while the poor hairdresser inflicted the damage, my mum standing over them scowling to make sure they did as they were told. Short back and sides. Ouch.

As a little kid when I played with the girl next door, I'd often nick a tea-towel and tie it around my head. When challenged by my mum, I learned quickly to tell her I was pretending to be an Arab, or else to pull it off when she came in the room. But of course in the make believe that we were weaving, playing tea parties with her dolls and my bears (I wasn't allowed dolls) we were mums, or princesses, or movie stars, and my tea towel was my wonderful Farrah Fawcett long hair.

Later on my hair (I guess in conjunction with my general femininity) would get me in trouble at school, too. Not straight away. Kids aren't inherently cruel. They take time to learn bigotry from their parents. But by age 12 or so, my hair was weaponised. In the Australian suburban schoolyard, it marked me as a "poof". I stopped, for a few years, complaining so much when I was told to get my hair cut.

So fast forward another couple of years and hair started becoming my nightmare. Not the hair on my head, but everywhere else. I started getting hair on my legs, my arms, my face. I despaired. Puberty can be a tough time for many kids. When you're trans though, it's like your whole body is out to get you.

If I ever meet the person who invented laser epilation, I'm going to kiss them. They are my greatest hero. I was incredibly lucky transitioning in a time when laser hair removal was just getting started. I went to town. My face, underarms, bikini line and legs all got a thorough zapping. It was an amazingly painful process that kept me in abject poverty for a good few years, but so amazingly worth it.

As for the hair on my head, pretty-much as soon as I got out of my parent's house I started to grow it out. I spent most of my twenties with a Betty Page do. Severe fringe, thick and black. Or red, when I had money for dye.

Now I'm in my forties, I'm seeing my peers, one after another, cutting their hair. I'm going grey, but I fully intend on rocking that and being the crazy old lady with the stupidly long hair. After all, it's where I derive all my power.