Maintaining My Feminine Identity

This June marks two years since a big personal change in my life. 

As someone who has always identified as a feminine woman, I've experienced some strange but interesting interactions where numerous people have categorized me in a more masculine way since I drastically changed my hairstyle just short of two years ago. Some of these interactions have stuck with me so much so that I've decided to go off a bit on "feminine identity" within and surrounding the lesbian world, focusing mainly on my own experiences. 

Anyone who knows me personally or has followed Three Strange Women over the past couple of years, has seen both my work AND my image change pretty dramatically. 

I am a woman who loves being a woman, there is no doubt about that. Sure, once a month I might disagree with the previous statement, but 98% of the time, I love being a lady, and I happen to love other ladies as well. My feminine identity plays a huge part in my life and is reflected in how I carry myself, in my personality, in how I interact, and it is reflected in some of my personal and lifestyle choices.

For those who don't know me or haven't followed TSW, I used to maintain a "seemingly" much more feminine image. 

I used the word "seemingly" with quotations above because, in reality, I haven't changed much of anything besides a hairstyle. For the majority of my life I've had shoulder-length or beyond, long dark brown hair. During my mid/late teen years, I began to notice missing patches of hair on my head, which grew increasingly larger over a short period of time. I later came to know that what I was experiencing was a relatively common, but unfortunate, random, bodily reaction which can be attributed to stress/ anxiety/ depression, called Alopecia.

Even through my struggle with Alopecia, I maintained my long, feminine hairstyle with various hair pieces and wigs. It wasn't easy. 

I was a sad, teenage, queer girl, with diabetes and Alopecia attending a Catholic school where being different wasn't really embraced. 

I was bullied and it sucked. I was depressed and found a release in cutting because I was unhappy with myself and obviously with what was happening to and around me and I nearly lost myself. I am very lucky in the sense that over time, I found a new and hard earned love for myself, and with vitamins, a healthy diet, and regular work out routine, my body began healing itself. 

My hair had started to grow back, and I was at a point where I felt minimally comfortable with the idea of not wearing the wig, and trying to embrace my body's hard work, by allowing my scalp to breathe and continue producing it's own, new, healthy hair. 

On Saturday June 8th, 2013, I showed off my brand new SHORT hairstyle for the first time, on my very first Three Strange Women Pride Parade float.

9 years had passed since I had felt the wind blow through my hair. It was a truly surreal, invigorating, and empowering moment for me as a person; a moment of triumph that I will never forget. It not only marked a milestone for me as a professional, but it was a milestone for me as MYSELF. I was terrified, but I truly felt like a piece of ME had been restored. 

I was initially very uncomfortable with the short hairstyle. Short hair was never something I wanted, but I also didn't want or need to wear a wig to hide the effects of my Alopecia any longer, unless, of course, I just wanted to continue embrace my inner drag queen.

After the initial shock of getting used to myself looking so different, I began to notice strange, slight differences in the way I was treated by people... mostly strangers, but a few friends here and there as well. 

The first moment I realized that my femininity was being perceived differently was when a straight, male friend whom I hadn't seen in a while randomly messaged me on the internet prefacing the conversation with, "I want to say something to you, but I don't want you to feel offended...". 

Of course, I immediately said I wouldn't be offended out of sheer curiosity, and I wasn't necessarily "offended" by what he said, as much as I was surprised. 

"Your hair looks great.... but now you look like a lesbian."

I'm obviously a very openly queer, feminine identified person regardless of my hairstyle, and this person was very familiar with my out-ness, knows my personality, but still felt the need to let me know that he thought I now LOOKED like a gay... because my hair was short.

I honestly wasn't offended. I was shocked... Not even shocked at my friend's reaction, but shocked that this might be something that other people would now automatically assume as well.

Not that it's bad to "look like a lesbian", but honestly.... what the fuck does that even MEAN? What is a lesbian "supposed" to look like? Why is short hair suddenly synonymous with being a woman who likes women?  

Before the short hair, I had been able to relate to feelings of "femme invisibility", in the sense that people would question my sexuality, asking if I was "really a lesbian" because I didn't "look like a lesbian"... It was frustrating, mostly because it was straight men who were always "joking" with me after being turned down because I'm not generally interested in intimacy with masculine individuals. 

I went from one extreme end of a spectrum to another extreme end of a spectrum literally over night.

Who knew that all it would take is one magical hair style, and *POOF* instant lesbian. 

Needless to say, it was essentially a face-palm moment for me. 

Other examples of little gender-bender instances that I have only experienced because of my "image" have been things like going about my daily business wearing a fitted hat with no makeup & a hoodie, and being called "sir" or "this dude" while in line for a burrito... I wore hats and no makeup with long hair and my gender was never questioned. 

And of course, you've got to love the road rage moment or two where a grizzly older guy exclaims, "you're a girl?! I thought you were a fuckin' dude! Fuckin' dyke!". Believe it or not, the road rage thing has happened two or three times in under two years. 

Oh, and another great one is when people are surprised that I like to carry a purse. WHY DOES THAT SURPRISE ANYONE?! I'm a WOMAN... a woman who likes to carry THINGS with me to places. Why WOULDN'T I have a purse? Some men like purses, too. 

By the way, these are generally non-queer girls who have said the purse thing to me. When the most recent situation occurred, her response to "why wouldn't I?" was, "I don't know, because you're a lesbian and you look kind of boyish...". Mind you I was wearing a decent amount of makeup, in all black, tight fitted pants and a black sleeveless t-shirt. I guess because I have short hair I wouldn't have belongings that I'd like to bring places with me? *blink blink*

This has been a very different experience for me, identity-wise. It doesn't upset me, but it definitely makes me think. 

In experiencing these things, I've learned to embrace a bit of androgyny in myself over the past couple of years, which is something I never necessarily expected to have to do based solely on appearance/hairstyle. 

Regardless of how I look, once I open my mouth, I'm still the same person I always was... a very feminine entity, who embraces my femininity with things like (black) nail polish and makeup and various other stereotypical "girlish" things. 

I now carry myself with confidence and am blessed to continuously experience a very unexpected type of love for myself. It's a great feeling, to finally like myself for who I am and person I continue to become. I'm a strong woman who has overcome so many of my own personal struggles, and that makes me feel a sense of empowerment that no one can ever take away from me because it's something I've found in myself.  

My struggle with Alopecia isn't over, I still occasionally lose little round patches of hair for no reason, and it's a little thin in places, but in the end, I'm so grateful to have overcome.

Whether I look like a girl, or a boy, or whatever, I'm just happy to still be alive and to be the woman I am. 

The wind blowing in my hair is still one of the greatest "new" feelings in the world.