(no subject)
I cut my hair last year to donate it, and cut it boy-short because I like being mistaken and then proceeded to more or less forget about it because getting haircuts is effort, man. But now after a year, it's getting long enough to tie back and... and...
And now I'm getting twitchy about whether to grow it out again or not. On the one hand, I sometimes like how it looks long. Especially on those rare occasions when I do something that vaguely resembles dressing up, or go to ren fest. I kind of like trying to braid it and do stuff with it, though I rarely actually bother because--like I said--effort. On the other hand....
People don't mistake me for a guy when my hair is long.
*cringe*
I never quite know what to do with that part of myself. I feel like I'm not consistent enough about it to really makes claims like "I am I man in a woman's body." I have weeks--even months--where I never think about it and it's no big deal. I'm mostly okay with being called a "girl" though the word "woman" makes me want to scream an scream and scream and then mutilate the relevant anatomy with a rusty knife.
And I own a dress and I wore it to church a few times and I even kind of liked how I looked in it... but I hated how every single other person I ever spoke to talked about me wearing the dress. People saying it's natural to want to feel womanly, and women at church telling my mom how I'd finally blossomed or something like that, and then my mom seemed so conspicuously relieved and I just. Want to burn the damn thing because no that's not what I meant. And now that dress sits in my closet and eats at me because I do like it but I feel like wearing it isn't worth it because it's like I'm undermining my whole sense of identity for the sake of a few hours of dress-up. Except, is that identity valid if I want to play dress-up? I also have a pair of high heels I bought to wear with the dress and my mom suggested I could wear them to interviews, and I couldn't explain to her why that was such an obscene, horrifying idea. I mean, I bought them, right? That must mean I want to wear them, why is this a thing?
And I don't know what to do with it. Where to put it, how to make peace with it. The worst thing isn't how my voice cracks when I try to sing the base line in a song or how my hips ruin the contour of my figure; it's the scattered girly bits inside my head. And the rest of me rallies together and hates those girly bits so much, every time I cry at a movie or buy shoes or eat chocolate or whatever I feel like I've betrayed myself or something, like by wearing that stupid dress I sabotage my right to identify as... anything
Sometimes I think to myself: self, this is a false choice, just because culture says people are one or the other doesn't mean you actually are. But then what do you do when men say crap about how women are, or when women talk to you like you're one of them? What do you say when you're stupid gender identity is too complicated to explain before people get bored and annoyed with you for rambling? I usually just go after them for stereotyping, but. But that's not why it bothers me as much as it does, that's not what's really making me so upset.
I want to cut my hair. But what if I want it long again next week?
And now I'm getting twitchy about whether to grow it out again or not. On the one hand, I sometimes like how it looks long. Especially on those rare occasions when I do something that vaguely resembles dressing up, or go to ren fest. I kind of like trying to braid it and do stuff with it, though I rarely actually bother because--like I said--effort. On the other hand....
People don't mistake me for a guy when my hair is long.
*cringe*
I never quite know what to do with that part of myself. I feel like I'm not consistent enough about it to really makes claims like "I am I man in a woman's body." I have weeks--even months--where I never think about it and it's no big deal. I'm mostly okay with being called a "girl" though the word "woman" makes me want to scream an scream and scream and then mutilate the relevant anatomy with a rusty knife.
And I own a dress and I wore it to church a few times and I even kind of liked how I looked in it... but I hated how every single other person I ever spoke to talked about me wearing the dress. People saying it's natural to want to feel womanly, and women at church telling my mom how I'd finally blossomed or something like that, and then my mom seemed so conspicuously relieved and I just. Want to burn the damn thing because no that's not what I meant. And now that dress sits in my closet and eats at me because I do like it but I feel like wearing it isn't worth it because it's like I'm undermining my whole sense of identity for the sake of a few hours of dress-up. Except, is that identity valid if I want to play dress-up? I also have a pair of high heels I bought to wear with the dress and my mom suggested I could wear them to interviews, and I couldn't explain to her why that was such an obscene, horrifying idea. I mean, I bought them, right? That must mean I want to wear them, why is this a thing?
And I don't know what to do with it. Where to put it, how to make peace with it. The worst thing isn't how my voice cracks when I try to sing the base line in a song or how my hips ruin the contour of my figure; it's the scattered girly bits inside my head. And the rest of me rallies together and hates those girly bits so much, every time I cry at a movie or buy shoes or eat chocolate or whatever I feel like I've betrayed myself or something, like by wearing that stupid dress I sabotage my right to identify as... anything
Sometimes I think to myself: self, this is a false choice, just because culture says people are one or the other doesn't mean you actually are. But then what do you do when men say crap about how women are, or when women talk to you like you're one of them? What do you say when you're stupid gender identity is too complicated to explain before people get bored and annoyed with you for rambling? I usually just go after them for stereotyping, but. But that's not why it bothers me as much as it does, that's not what's really making me so upset.
I want to cut my hair. But what if I want it long again next week?