I wrote my first zine submission on body hair. In the summer of 2013, fresh from my all-girls high school, me and my friend Judy stopped shaving. Granted, we are both eastern European and grow very little hair, and what did grow was blonde when we were sixteen. But there was something rebellious about it and something comforting to know that we were both doing it. I memorialised this feeling by challenging the idea of ‘feminine grooming’ in my first foray into zines. So many of my memories with Judy are linked to our hair: we would supplement biotin to make it grow, pick out prom hair styles for each other, she would cut mine back because neither of us would trust me to cut my own hair. When she cut fat from her diet her hair got thin and limp, and when she recovered her hair was robust and strong, a sign that she was healthy again. It was at the end of high school I jokingly suggested that I should shave my head as part of our leavers’ assembly. Three years later when I did shave my head, it was both an impulsive decision, and one I had been thinking about since high school. I thought shaving my head was going to make me happy. But it didn’t. I was still confused and lonely, just with less hair. More exposed. Which was my way out of the loneliness. It taught me for real (and not just nodding along in theory) that external validation is bullshit. If I asked certain people about my new hair I would get the response I wanted. If I asked other people, I knew I’d get a response that would upset me. My family didn’t tell me how my 80-year-old Polish grandmother reacted. They told me later that it was irrelevant. And when I say that external validation is bullshit, that’s what I mean: it is irrelevant to my sense of self-worth. It is not irrelevant, however, to finding the people who would support me. I change my mind about how I feel about having a shaved head constantly, and there are probably people in my life who think I am, at best, ambivalent about shaving my head. I would regret shaving my head, hate my shaved head, but it was a scapegoat for the parts of me with which I was still uncomfortable. I was unaware of my internalised homophobia until I shaved my head. I was fine with my queer identity in theory, in practise, as long as I was still attractive to men. Having a shaved head, dressing androgynously and dating girls meant other people could no longer see me as potentially straight in the societal ‘straight until proven guilty’ brand of heteronormativity. I was queer – a word I use as a reclaimed catch-all term to express my pan/bisexuality and burgeoning androgyny, my allegiance to an LGBTQI+ community, and general subversion of the hetero-script I felt got handed to me on my first day of school – and finally coming to terms with that. It was a process I only feel myself fully getting to grips with, and that process is definitely not complete. Shaving my head changed my life. Shaving my head meant I stopped trying to be something that I never was, and this took the form of passing as straight in spaces where being queer felt too difficult. I was going to have to redefine the boundaries between myself and other
people, and create the spaces where I felt comfortable. What I often don’t think about when recalling my abrupt change of style is that I posted in Facebook groups for my friends’ feedback before deciding to do it. I needed my queer family to help me discuss that choosing to shave my head was empowering for me, whilst understanding that having no hair is often a source (or result) of trauma for other people. My shaved head is communal, just like the images, words and thoughts of the people who inspire me to keep making impulsive, passionate, ridiculous decisions. This zine is a physical reminder of my community. My friend Judy said my hair looked beautiful when I shaved it all off. I think she could see that I was giving myself permission to do something I should have felt able to a long time ago. To all who are queering their hair narrative, I respect your decisions so much. Shaving my head gave me the space to see that I had to stop living to please everyone else, that being conventionally attractive was not something I had to literally buy into to validate the space I take up. The space taken up in this zine discussing queerness and hair is a reflection of the spaces we need to see in day-to-day situations, to show that queer people are valid, worthy of space, and can prosper in a world not immediately set up for us. I am grateful to every single person who submitted their work, reads this zine and considers the essential task of representing queer narratives. Today, I choose to represent that narrative in HAIR and through the people I love. Thank you.
CONFUSED? SO THEN I’M JUST LIKE YEAH BOYS GIRLS WHATEVER AND IT’S ALL FANTASY FANTASY AND THIS GUY IS LIKE LEATHER SPIKES AND STRAPPY ATTITUDE AND THIS GIRL IS LIKE NERD-CHIC STRIPETOP GEEK MAN WHEN I SEE GIRLS IN PORN THEY’RE SO DULL BUT THIS GIRL, TWISTING WITH HER LOOSE FREE FLOWING HAIR PISTOL-WHIPPING ME, IN AMONGST THESE GRINDING GROUPIES SHE DANCES ON ME AND I’M SO VIRGINAL BECAUSE I CAN HANDLE A MAN LIKE A MOTORCYCLE BUT THIS GIRL? DUDE I AM ENDLESSLY TRYING ME AND A GUITAR, ON MY BACK, ALONE ROAD MY BED COVERED IN WIRES FROM MY KEYBOARD TO A MIXER YEAH YEAH IT’S ALL DIGITAL ANALOGUE STARING AT YOU BEHIND MY FRINGE THIS BOY GRINS AT ME, BARE CHEST UNDER HIS MESH VEST CHEWS GUM AND TAKES ME BACK TO HIS JEEZ! BUT AS WE’RE LYING THERE RUNNING MY HAND THROUGH HIS HAIR I DON’T WANT TO KISS HIM OR EVEN GET WITH HIM… I REACH DOWN AND HOLD HIS HAND HE’S FIGITTING FRUSTRATEDLY I’M CRINGING, SO VIRGINAL YET HIS SILHOUETTE THE MOST HOLY IMAGE GOD IF I COULD TELL YOU I LOVED YOU TILL YOU COME INSTEAD WE LEAVE DISSATISFIED AND I SEE THAT MY GIRL HAS RUNG I CALL BACK SWOOPING, SWOONING
DIZZY WITH MORE THAN I CAN COPE COPE SHE TELLS ME THAT SHE’S GOT A BOY AND THAT’S THE MOMENT THAT I KNOW
SHIT, BUT THE SUB-BASS LINE HAS AN EIGHT-TONE PROGRESSION THAT’S LASTING OVER FOURTY SECONDS, LOOPING OVER ELEVEN TIMES THIS CLUBBING IS NO FRIEND OF MINE BUT I CAN STILL MAKE FUN TONIGHT YO YO DOWN-LOW AT LEAST THE HIP-HOP MAKES DIRTY GUYS SHOW WITH THEIR SPORTS KITS, OUTDOORS, HEAVEN GRIND DOUBLE BEDS AND ROPES THESE SLUTS ARE FANTASTICALLY FASCINATING WE’RE SO RUDE TO EACH OTHER
MY FRIENDS OFFER ME POPPERS THE NEXT DAY OVER A GAME OF MONOPOLY BUT I CONFESS I HAVE OTHER CONNOTATIONS SO I DON’T INHALE THESE PSYCHEDELIC SOLVENTS, THEY PASS IT ROUND THE CIRCLE AS I WATCH AND REFLECT ON THE TINY BOTTLE LUCKILY FOR ME MY BEST FRIENDS BUY MY HOTELS
WITH THEIR SHINY DOLLARS
SO IT ALL ENDS WELL DRESSING UP FUNKY FRESH SO I’LL CONNECT OUT THE OLD FRONT DOOR, MY BRITISH GLORY WALK OF SHAME IN THE MORNING, WITH MY BEST FRIENDS SURROUNDING ME, MAKING ME LAUGH LIKE KISS KISS KISS SUNGLASSES AND NECKLACES
YELLOW TANK TOP, GOLD CHAIN, SNAPBACK, YOU KNOW HAHA, WE OVERDID IT GRINNING WITH SQUAD MASCULINITY PALMS UP TO THE DIVINE IN ALL OF US! PERFECTING OURSELVES, WORKING ON IT WE’VE EACH GOT A TIGHT RAP LINE TO SPIT INTERNET LYRICS – TOGETHER, WE’LL FIT BECAUSE WE EXIST WE BRING IT INTO LIVING LIVING LIVING IT!
shift glass pointed eyes with the incoming tide & freely scream incarnadine. don’t you know how looks scorch skin & pillow-words become sick with the tick of those perpetual questions? I want to slice the dirt they see churning rotundly from the depths of every full follicle. petal flesh is an honest lie & devours in unspoken breaths. it trickles into minds & nests there, at home in crevices of halflight, sweet waterbed seeps & strokes with calm razor hues.
I never really liked my hair. Long, that is. From a young age we are made hyper-aware that, as women, expressing displeasure with our appearances is tiresomely cliché - this mentality is a difficult paradox. What might appear to encourage self-love and acceptance in reality indoctrinates the idea that our thoughts and opinions are subservient to those of others. It’s the trope of the self-sacrificing woman in literature; it’s the basis of our self worth lying in the eyes of strangers. It paradoxically leads us to punish our bodies and minds into shapes and sizes that other people like. There was a lot that displeased me about my appearance, growing up. My hair was one of those things. Practically, it was a nuisance. Forever flying into my eyes, forever frizzy and untamable, forever ridiculous and unpredictable in photographs. I secretly coveted the spiky bob of every video game avatar of my youth, and whilst this could potentially be problematic, as we tend to associate the more traditionally masculine with strength and power, at the same time little Fran seemed to recognize that losing your locks was a big old fuck you to someone - Little did I know, that someone was a patriarchally-imposed hyper-feminine ideal that would loom tauntingly above my head like that squid in Mario Kart – the difference being that it would obscure my vision for most of my young life, not just long enough to drive me off of rainbow road. The person I wanted to be had short hair. Short hair was spunky and rebellious, even before I could begin to understand why. But the person I was supposed to be had long hair, and that’s something I came to passively accept. I learned to just accept what other people told me that they liked. My hair was spun into golden thread by the honeyed words of friends and strangers; I had been told countless times never to change it, ever. When people met me, the first thing they noticed was my hair, hailing it as beautiful and special. It made me beautiful and special, and it quickly became a part of my identity. My mother said I should wear it down when I sang, down when I went to school dances, down at award ceremonies, down when I left the houseI was taught to fear losing it above all else. Rare trips to the hairdresser were accompanied with pleas to remove as little as possible, and as that ‘little as possible’ fell to the floor so I,
like a young Samson, lost some of what made me special. As little girls we're taught to treat our hair like gold dust - braiding it and playing with it in pinstriped dresses on the playground. The mums of daughters with short hair were judged as cruel by the other mums, and I vividly remember two girls in my primary school class being mocked and taunted mercilessly by the boys for having "short hair, short hair". So – what prompted such a turn of events? In Cambridge (and this can happen anywhere, for me it happened to happen in Cam) I began to find people who thought more like me. Coming from a town where I was ridiculed for being a feminist and bluntly told society was equal by my male peers, I found a place (though no place is perfect) where being a feminist was the norm, not the anomaly. The harsh judgements cast on the bodies of girls back home weren’t so prominent here, the obsession with exercise and looking a certain way just wasn’t so important. I found people who looked past my body and saw me – someone worth talking to, and for more than something as stupid and trivial as the muscles on their body, or the length of their hair. I learned to communicate without depending on my appearance, I felt accepted at last, and I began to reassess what I liked. What I wanted. Did I want to use the gym to punish myself into an acceptable shape and size? Did I want to spend time and money shaving my legs, which would regularly bleed and be painful? Did I want to live my life being ruled by the desires of others, many of which (as a feminist) I so ardently railed against? And did I want long hair? Perhaps, like Cousin Itt, my hair was obscuring who I really was; perhaps, if I took what had been hailed as my “best asset” out of the equation, I would find a beautiful version of my self that didn’t depend upon the superficial at all. Of course, cutting your hair is by no means a cure-all, but for me at least the results were better than I ever could have hoped. People no longer go straight to my hair when they meet me; it’s so much less effort to keep, healthier, and most importantly I like the way it looks now. It’s finally mine, and it’s a part of the spunky, rebellious ‘fuck you all’ Fran that little me could only recreate through the low quality graphics of ‘Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock’. I’m not saying that short hair is by any means a necessary step in reclaiming what you like about yourself - you can fight the powers that be with your hair down to your ankles, if that’s what you would like to do! But for me, it just so happened that the metallic swish of scissors slicing hair was a steely axe to years of trying to be something that I could never be, and secretly never wanted to be: What other people liked.
The most important lesson to be learned from getting the chop is perhaps one a friend unknowingly delivered when I asked them: “What would I look like with short hair?” “Like you, but with short hair.” They replied. I was shocked that such a simple statement could so quickly cut me short (excuse the pun). Hair is just hair, at the end of the day. Hair grows. And funnily enough, many of my friends failed at first to even notice what had changed. I guess that’s because they notice me first, and then the way I look, and that’s just the way it should be. And as for the horrified folks at home – I didn’t cut my hair to please family I haven’t spoken to in years, or for Brenda at the gym. If your hair is all that folks are noticing, they clearly need to look harder – they’re missing the beautiful human underneath.
I’m high key obsessed with the music video for ‘Hair’ by Little Mix. It’s the platonic ideal of a noughties teen sleepover crossed with the messiness of a night in with friends: think neon pink margaritas, lip syncing into hair brushes, stalking exes on Instagram and fluffy slippers. ‘Hair’ was also my first post-breakup jam. The track’s refrain, “gotta get him out my hair”, became both a plea and an imperative; a yearning for metamorphosis. Bleach, cut, dye, trim and shave away the hurt and you will emerge stronger, it seemed to promise. It also chimed with a need to take baby steps into exploring my queerness. But I wasn’t sure if getting “him” out of my hair meant swapping long weaves and lipstick for an undercut. I mean, how else do you ping any gaydars? This is bullshit, obviously. I get that there’s no one way to be queer. But between imposter syndrome about identifying as bisexual, feeling invisible in queer spaces and a complicated relationship with Eurocentric beauty standards, it’s been hard to know where I stand. And by extension, to figure out what to do with my hair. For all their talk of peroxide and getting curls, in the video none of the girls change their hairstyles. I think it’s more of an ode to the strength that can be drawn from rituals surrounding the performance of a hyper-femme aesthetic: getting all dressed up with nowhere to go, glossy blow-out, beat face, stilettos and all; prancing around with friends in silk pastel pyjamas and singing out of tune because you’re young, a bit sad and deliriously yourself. I’ve swapped my weave for a shorter bob. I wear lipstick, sometimes. I’m still figuring things out. I’m queer as fuck though, and it’s great.
when i cut eight inches of hair off
a perfect doll for him
i had never felt more alive but then i looked in the hairdresser’s mirror
i took to the mirror
and saw myself as i wanted to be seen
and chopped and chopped
for the first time
and when i cut my hair
in a long time
i cut myself free
my boyfriend did not like it
now i live
my boyfriend did not like me
for myself
i had heard him call girls with short hair
i grow and cut hair
‘not-girls’
for myself
they were not-pretty not-feminine
i love myself
not-for-him and i found a girl they lived their life on a plane of existence that refused to accommodate for his tastes
who lives her life on her own plane of existence who loves and lives for herself
and so when he started to treat me
who likes my short hair
like i was a ‘not-girl’
and sees me the way i want to be seen
like i was not pretty
who understands that there is more in this sprawling cosmos
like i was not human like i did not deserve love i believed him
than only boy ‘or’ girl who knows that i exist for myself but wants to dance
i boxed myself up made myself small groomed and plucked and shaved
and laugh and touch all the same
“im queer lets fuck up my hair”
Hair is a locus for social conflicts, a battleground for desirability and recognisability, and body hair is one of the most physicalised - as well as intimate - interactions between ideals and sexuality. Hair is tied up with larger concerns about image, the body, conformity and adequacy, in a tight French plait. The kind of plait that mean little girl who was really good at gymnastics used to wear in your early school days, thinking they were the shit. Whilst all women are raised on a staple diet of expectations from our straight white male overlords, trickling down everywhere from the porn industry to fashion magazines, I want to explore is the unique spin that queerness has given to the way that I see these social pressures. Simplistically speaking, women who shag other women are given an intimate view of how someone else of the same gender responds to these pressures and approaches their body. These insights are, one presumes, far more up-close, intensive, and personal than those of a woman unfamiliar with the ways of physicalised sapphism. Let’s contextualise: in my salad days, when I was green in judgment, cold in blood, hair was one in a plethora of exciting opportunities to impose standards and worry about the perceptions of others. Hair was quite an easy manifestation of the desire to be acceptable, and the media’s message as to what this might look like was loud and clear: less is better – none is probably best. It’s now easy to see how some of the same attitudes that landed me in eating disorder counselling were manifested in my acceptance that veering too far from hairlessness would result in undesirability. My reference points were limited: like most women, I wasn’t exposed to positive images of the body which celebrated choice and variation, and like far too many women I had a boyfriend (albeit one who I spent most break times hiding from). Looking back, it’s scarily evident just how uncomfortable I was with my body, and with the concept of hair: really I’d just like to sit 17 year old Mimi down and explain that I’ll still love her if she doesn’t shave her legs – and that she should let that boyfriend of hers down gently but firmly, and immediately. My hairy enlightenment can be traced back to a Greek island encounter - a moment when I was struck by the confidence with which someone else was able to present themselves. My first sexualised foray into queerness showed me someone comfortable in their own skin, at a time when I wasn’t comfortable in mine. She had hair on her body – more than I would have allowed on mine – but I still thought that she looked wonderful, and I questioned why it was that I felt self-conscious about something that I was not remotely fazed by in another. Don’t get me wrong, she didn’t look like the Gruffalo, but to see how comfortable she was with the hairs on her body was a tangible departure from my expectations. In such situations, for queers the hair debate can become different; personal, sexual – and while grooming remains a personal choice, intimacy with people of the same gender provides intimate reference
points for potential alternatives. I’ve somehow made the story sound quite emblematic, when in reality it amounted to clumsy sex in my room after a few G&Ts; my hands were trembling so much that I couldn’t get her bra off, and we never spoke again. But it seems clear that my queerness, and other similarly fleeting encounters which spring from it, continue to shape my relationship with hair. I probably didn’t learn a lot about sex from that encounter, but I thought about hair, and I changed my ideas. I would urge anyone to consider to what extent perspectives of hair are, rightly, shaped by what you are comfortable with, and how much stems from a sense of embarassment, or from a fear of being unacceptable. The feminist movement had been singing these notes for a long time, but for me it was only really in queer contexts that I realised that body hair wasn’t a quest for excellence and desirability, but something intimate, personal, and ultimately inconsequential. I knew that, intellectually, these arguments made sense, but when it came to perceptions of myself I ignored them alongside any other suggestion that I might set ‘lower’ personal standards. For me it is important to dissect what I actually find ‘worse’ or ‘unattractive’, rather than reading blindly from a patriarchal playbook, and what seems to help with this is to be intimately exposed to the responses of other women to the same pressures and expectations with which I myself contend.
You were the soft slide of bone, a collar of kisses blushed out straight and my cafe cup curls upturned in your hands and I think I felt my fingers through your scalp. and redness hewed in hardy flips and clicks of those sweet tips and nails like pink poker chips which tapped on the filter. the glow lit up your face, the end moistened by a tongue in time which cared for me. it’s too grey to find the ash in your hair I remember it with each sore ache of rushed mint and smoked up curls like the lion somewhere I imagine is you. and that mouth is a tender bruise blossomed out and arching again, up up finally up and parted and fluttering and forming O to blow sleep of my eyelashes, dandelion seeds floating on as lampyridae sketched out the open cotton of light stretched through the curtains they aren’t lamps they’re me but they flicker in you. and my head has collapsed with yours through the lettered mouth, a taste like wet paper inky buds and pearly tuts, your ribs stretched out again, your split words like split ends over my tongue, your scalp running strands into my spine and apostrophes like cut ends sliding my words into yours. we’ve ended wordless apart with my hair still on your pillow. your dad thinks it’s too short.
To me my hair represents two things: patience and freedom. Patience, because it took three fucking years to grow, and I was forced to endure the nightmare of the awkward-in-betweenphase. And freedom, because having long hair as a boy frees you in some small way from the binary aesthetic of male and female. My long hair is a silent statement of protest against the hegemonic concept of masculinity. Plus, I can swish it around and do slow motion Baywatch hair flicks.
My hair is blonde, curly in a frizzy, bushy kind of way, occasionally pink, but always quite messy. It’s the kind of hair that generally gets me compliments from grandmas, women working at shop counters, or female school teachers. When I was younger, in primary school, I was quite proud of the fact that my hair was different from most of my friends’ – I enjoyed that it was big and attention grabbing, that it looked interesting, and made me stand out. Then, when I hit year 8 or 9, and my friends started to get boyfriends (or the closest thing you can have at age 13), the label of ‘interesting’ became something I resented. I didn’t want to be interesting, I wanted to be ‘pretty’ or ‘attractive’. Girls in my year would say my hair was cute, boys in my year would ask me if I’d ever straightened it, or try to throw bits of paper in it and see if they could get one caught and suspended in the ringlets without me noticing. For a long time, I felt that if I only had sleek, shiny, straight hair like most of my friends, boys would surely notice me. Somewhere between the ages of 15 and 17 I realised that the occasional “girl crushes” I’d had in the past were just plain crushes, and that boys just did not appeal to me anymore. Once I’d accepted this, it no longer mattered to me what boys thought of it. When female friends complimented it, I would genuinely feel good, rather than seeing it as an empty comment and wishing it had come from a boy. Thinking about it now, this happened with pretty much all aspects of my self: my clothing choices, my confidence at speaking in groups, my ability to share opinions on things that I genuinely cared about. Once I allowed myself to stop trying to impress boys, and focussed on the kindness and support I received from girls, who I felt I could understand and care about more, I was able to start just enjoying the things I enjoy, and being proud of the aspects of my appearance that I’d once resented.
…..
About a week after I originally wrote this, I cut off most of my hair in an impulsive and slightly fraught manner one evening. I’d spent the day having to ask various members of university staff for help in the face of mental health problems I was struggling with, and frustrated at the helplessness and lack of control I felt, I took the paper scissors from my desk and just chopped it off. At first this felt like the scariest thing I’d done in my life, good or bad I’d always had quite a lot of my identity invested in my hair, and I felt like I’d just destroyed a big part of myself. But through my relationships with the (largely queer) women around me, who told me they thought it was powerful, that the new style suited me, that they appreciated and admired my decision to take control of at least one aspect of my life, I came to feel more positive about it. Quite a few of the queer women I know have had a dramatic haircut at one point in their life, so it felt like I was strengthening my links to that community. After spending so many years wishing for my hair to be what boys considered ‘pretty’, I’d actively decided to cut it off, into a style that, while not uncommon among women, is not generally associated with conventional beauty standards. In this way, I feel like my hair has deep ties to my identity as a lesbian, as well as being something which physically represents the way my identity has changed and developed throughout my life.
i grew my hair for fifteen years ~ straight, touching my arse, fine, blonde ~ in’t the bairn’s hair luvly?
eventually, due to the way it tangled in my hoodie and the fact i couldn’t be fucked to brush it anymore, i lopped it off i was told i would cry when i did but, it was only my mum that cried— i just felt the weight off my mind
was i samson? for a while, perhaps, until i found the words to regain my strength ‘i have a girlfriend – not a lesbian, bisexual, now piss off’ As i got closer, My hair got shorter, Shaving closer to my skull, As i reached to find the term that would feel right, Through agender, genderqueer, non-binary, trans-masculine,
And now as I go to the barber’s with the lads And he queries whether I really want a grade three on the back And I know that I do and nod and affirm myself and the shortness of my hair And we finish and leave and walk on and I’ve found what feels right As the thick short strength brushes my palm
“Raddest chick outta btown in 30 years“
I never really thought about the term queer in relation to myself until a couple of months ago when Claire first asked if I was interested in writing something for this. I did the standard and had a google and what I found interested me. According to the internet it wasn’t until the mid 80’s that the LGBT+ community began to reclaim the word queer which traditionally was used to insult pretty much anyone who identified as LGBT+. It’s a pretty transparent insult as queer means odd, other, different and so like all homophobic slurs does more to identify the thrower of the insult as someone scared of difference and diversity than give any legitimate insult. I mean its literally like shouting “you are different to me!” at someone. I am a cis gender bisexual female and have identified as such since I was 19; I was all those things before but like most lacked the terminology (finding bisexual at 16 and cis at 19). My hair is boob length brown ringlets if its brushed or a shoulder length, brown pick and mix of tight curls and straight strands if it’s not, which it usually isn’t. I usually wear it shorter than it is at the moment but I can’t afford a haircut and refuse to let anyone else cut it because I am becoming (much to my embarrassment) quite vain about it. I think the vanity has surfaced through fascination. We have a weird relationship me and my hair, I still feel like it its not quite connected to my head, this is because my hair up until I was 16 was straight. I grew up with straight light brown hair and it wasn’t until I was climbing out of my teens that it suddenly (and for no apparent or non-apparent reason) became incredibly curly. And looked shit a lot of the time because I didn’t know what I was doing, I was used to brushing it and now apparently I wasn’t allowed to do that because it made me resemble a poodle. What worries me most about this vanity is moving away from bravery, I like millions of other LGBT teens dyed my hair. I bleached it, I toned it, I covered it in hair spray and back combed it. In fact, I dyed it so much that I burnt off a layer of my hair and had to wear it up for a year to prevent people from seeing that I had a fringe running down one side of my head from where it was growing back. I used to love dying my hair, it was fun and exciting and made me feel like I was telling the world who I was before I could and then when I did come out I felt like it indicated my sexuality to other people, which I liked. I have great admiration for my queer friends who choose distinct hair styles which pay homage to our shared queer heritage. Mullets, shaved heads, bright neon hair dye all have roots in queer culture. In a generation which has abandoned the traditional boundaries of subcultures in favour for mass fluidity these hair styles act as markers, an acknowledgment of what it took to get to where we are today.
I don’t think my current hair is such a key part of my queer identity as it once was but I am very aware that it once was and can be again whenever I choose. (Oh the magic of hair dye and a pair of scissors). I now prefer to aesthetically express that aspect of myself through make up; bright, colourful, badly executed make up which I rarely seem to see heterosexual people wearing in quite the same way. It’s fun I like doing it, and I like looking into the history of colours and association. My favourite look currently is called ‘deconstructed Cleopatra’ and involves a royal blue cut crease and a choice selection of gold jewellery. Identities, especially queer ones are tangled in politics and often seen as fair game for political commentators and unoriginal journalists to swipe at young people, this is a level of bullying and pressure which we are all likely to feel at some point. The nuances of identity and individuality politics can be a bit overwhelming sometimes, playing is an excellent remedy to this. I highly recommend buying some bleach from Superdrug and chucking it on your head, or failing that do what I do and just go to town with some cheap blue eye shadow. Whatever you do remember who came before you and how hard they fought to get us here, no one is harder than the queers.
When my mum got diagnosed with cancer, she decided to cut all her hair off to raise money for St Barnabas. Since then, she's been on chemo and her hair started growing back but she got 'chemo curls' so is currently alternating between hats and headscarves. She is the bravest chicka I know.
Not again My hair is now unkempt and my undercut is all fluffy again What a pain. How many weeks has it been now? Swear I only did this two weeks ago.
********
Shocker Two weeks ago was actually two months Oops.
********
How hard is it To get somewhere that will cut my hair Without the hairdresser freaking out Outside London? Turns out Incredibly awkwardly extremely hard
********
Femme girls say I’m too masc People say butches can’t have longer hair
Right then I’m going over here now Where all the fun people are Bye.
********
People watching Is she also queer? Or does she just have a quirky haircut for summer. Dilemma.
********
At a party A woman comes up to me And says my hair is amazing And she'd love to try going short And she's not brave enough to do it Because she doesn't know if her Boyfriend Would still like her I consider that we have different ideas about what is brave
I hope she's okay now
********
I take a picture of myself after a fresh undercut
And upload it to social media Uh Damn That's a lot of likes And far more private messages Than I was expecting
I should do this more often
*********
I pass most days But today Queer women and queer men flirt with me On the tube I bounce on the soles of my feet All the way down Whitechapel station's platforms
*********
My partner compliments my hair 'It's nice to see how sharp and cool you can look and at a moment's notice you roll up your selves and can get stuck into something silly'.
Last spring, the male hormone doctor told me I have a mild to moderate case of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), an incurable condition which affects around 1 out of every 10 women in the UK. I knew this already, as I’d diagnosed myself at the age of 17 after unsuccessfully trying to convince my GP that my missed periods and ‘excess’ hair growth weren’t a result of stress alone. I knew my own body and I’d done my online research thanks, doc. A quick glance at the NHS Choices website (let’s be honest, it’s normally more of an extended delve leading to multiple, unwarranted health anxieties) will tell you that PCOS is associated with a cluster of symptoms, typically: cysts on the ovaries, irregular or absent periods, difficulty conceiving, weight gain, loss of hair from the head, acne, and excessive hair growth on the body. Excessive hair growth, or hirsutism as it is medically known, is the symptom of PCOS which as a teenager I noticed first on my own body, and it is the symptom which I have most persistently tried to hide and make invisible both to myself and others. The interesting (and for some women, literally depressing) aspect of PCOS is that virtually all of its symptoms are antithetical to normative notions of femininity and womanhood. Hairy women- both cis and trans- tend to make people feel uncomfortable and confused at best, repulsed and abusive at worst. Seemingly, many find the prospect of a hairy woman threatening because visible, thick hair on the body (including the face, chest and stomach) is associated with men, and maleness, and so women displaying such patterns of hair growth provoke a contradiction of expectations; they subvert contemporary Western notions of female beauty and acceptability and are therefore made to feel strange and inferior. The more I think about PCOS, the more I believe it is as much a social condition as it is a medical one. Currently, there is no cure for the condition, only treatment aimed at supressing its symptoms, most of which have no stated medical benefit other than ‘improving the selfesteem’ of the patient. The assumption made by medical professionals is that women with PCOS must want to remove the ‘excess’ hair on their bodies, and supress the ‘raised’ testosterone in their hormone profiles, and in so doing, they reproduce the rigid and binary social categories of ‘male’ and ‘female’, ‘man’ and ‘woman’. Accepting my diagnosis of PCOS has come with the realisation that the hair on, and testosterone in, my body are not excessive, nor are they uncommon, their quantities simply do not fall neatly within the narrow and arbitrary parameters imposed upon my body by others, including GPs and specialist doctors. It takes time, and a lot of confidence, to undo all the conditioning which has told me to despise the hair on my body. In many ways, being in a loving, queer relationship has certainly helped me feel more able to expose myself to another person without having endured some kind of long and painful hair removal beforehand. I’m happy that, at age 23, I’m making progress.
if i cut my nails, i postpone the issue. but the dust still gathers, grows, gets its moment before being yanked. i can blunt tools but not my eyes, burning laser marks tracked across my skin in bunches. move the burn from the surface to ears, worm through membranes to lodge underneath. buzz, cut, strip clean. prevention is the best cure. and when it gets washed, fragments spill. take the surface away more more and harder burn again to remind me that it works that i'm doing the work i need to excise these marks claw closed these rotten seams to feel safe and until it leaks out and down the drain, leave me just a little to record my markings. after all, it has always seemed to be easier to knit ribbons of twisted enamel into my mind than map out constellations of skin and blood, comet trails smeared thick across the convex dome.
My hair has varied fairly often in length and colour. As a teenager (and still very much so now as a confused adult in her twenty somethings) it was the most explicit tool for being able to take control of my body and identity. I will admit that I could taken better care of it, but that’s just an extension of my own self-care. After a very short amount of deliberation I decided to shave it off. I’m not one hundred percent able to pin down the factors I decided to do so, which is also a reflection of me not being able to pin down a lot of the choices I made at the time. However, it has been the first time in years and years that I felt comfortable about a haircut. It’s been a completely blank canvas for me, and still is. I have cut shapes into it, shaved it back down again, let it grow, and will properly add some colour to it and then shave it back down again. I know it’s cliché but it has given me real freedom in my ability to express myself and also served as metaphor for trying things, ruining them and starting all over again. That is not to say that I am being chaotic or compulsive in a way that is harmful to me. In fact, I am looking after my hair better than before and myself. I think being able to make such ‘radical’ choices, especially for women, non-binary and queer people should not be seen in negative terms of an ‘irrational’, ‘compulsive’ or ‘crazed’ decision. Obvious examples of this in popular culture are Britney and Clementine from ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.’ They try to take away our right to be emotional, to be angry, sad, or impassioned. They try to take our right away to express ourselves. They try to take away art from us. I believe that the act of cutting my hair is all of these things. My hair is very much part of my body, which is a microcosm of my identity, in particular the expression of my gender. Both agents and structural powers are constantly regulating these things. A girl cannot have short hair in order to be attractive to boys. Boys shouldn’t have coloured hair to be attractive to women. Non-binary people will be misgendered based on the length of their hair. These are just some of the ways they try to regulate us. I will not regulate my identity, they can’t have control of something as personal as our hair. If they take that, what’s left for us?
Editor’s letter – Claire Sosienski Smith FANTASY FANTASY – Shakes Follicles – Marina Scott Cut to the chase – Francesca Bertoletti wh00ps – Emrys Travis Hair – Anon Poem – a.e.b. Photo collection – Katie Martin I couldn’t hair less – Mimi Robson Split ends – Joel James Category is: big hair everywhere – Louis Michael Hair + queerness – Marisa Clements Poem – Alistair Hydes Photo collection – Linnea Synchyshyn Essay – Sasha Warren Photo collection – Helena Juric Thoughts + illustration – Charlie Stokes PCOS – Hattie Read Burn – Michael Davin Essay – Enya Sullivan