Hair- it's not just a 1970's musical

There are few things that cause me more trouble with my male identified presentation than my hair. It's long. Past my shoulders and naturally wavy.

I grew up in the 80's and 90's in Nebraska. I listened to lots of rock, hard rock, grunge and such. I didn't learn to associate hair length with gender. My father's hair was not short because he was male, it was short because he was in the military. If he hadn't been it would have been longer as evidenced by how he's kept it since getting out. It really had more to do with age, class or music sub-culture. Rockers guys, metal-heads, even country fans; a lot of these guys had long hair. And there were also lots of women with short hair all around me so again, not much association with gender and hair length really.

Another interesting factor, it was primarily straight identified guys who had longer hair. Gay guys were more likely to have it short in fact. The gay guys with long hair were generally the more granola/hippie types which made sense. Lesbians and bi/queer women could have any length of hair they wanted unless they into country, then in it was short. Or a mullet. *shudder*

Living in Kansas for four or so years didn't change this perception at all. A lot of my friends and acquaintances there were long haired guys of various sexual identities. Gay, straight, bisexual or non-defining sorts. The women were the same. So even less association with gender/sexuality and hair length. It was more a political indicator.

Then we moved to Chicago.

The number of men with long hair diminished greatly. Women here still seem for the most part free to wear their hair whatever length they desire but men seem expected to have it shorter, chin length maybe but even that is rare. You still see it but it's just so much less common. The exceptions seem to run along some very specific racial lines. Long dreadlocks for one, and people make all sorts of assumptions about that.

What does this mean for me? Well, in Nebraska or Kansas people would take gender cues from me based more on the clothes I was wearing than the length of my hair. Here that's not true. Here the length of my hair sometimes seems to be the biggest deciding factor in whether I get a ma'am or a sir. In the winter when I'm all bundled and the hair may be hidden under scarves and hats and coat and all, I get the sirs fairly often. But the minute it heats up and hair comes out, regardless of how masculine my attire, I become a ma'am. And it doesn't matter what hat I have on; baseball cap or outback fedora.

When I complain about this, the response from a lot of people is the same, cut your hair. But it's not that simple. For one thing, I really don't look good with short hair. In high school my hair was short, the result of having to save it from a terrible feathered haircut by a particularly ditzy beautician. Unfortunately the natural body, wave and dryness of my hair means that when short, it is also really fluffy. There may be pictures somewhere but I hope not.

With this history it's hard to imagine a short cut that will not serve to feminize my appearance even further. Sure I could go to a barber and get a man's cut. It's highly unlikely that there isn't a trans friendly barbershop in the whole of Chicago. I'm just not sure that it would make a difference.

There's another problem. I like my hair this way. Just like any rocker dude, the idea of cutting of my hair to suit the style of the mainstream bothers the hell out of me. Why should I cut my hair to suit some ridiculous, limiting concept of masculinity? What's more, my wife likes my hair and finds long hair attractive for men, women and those in between. She feels hair cutting is more a symbol of mourning or catharsis. When she shaved her head last year, people thought it was a butch thing. Even while she was wearing a dress. And make-up. And feminine jewelery. And girly head coverings. Even in heels!

What is wrong with people here that they have such a narrow definition of masculine and feminine that a simple haircut could make that much difference?

Maybe I should get a bunch of old Metallica t-shirts or something. Nothing after the black album of course. I never listened to enough Anthrax to back that up. Think anyone would buy a long haired, beardless dude in a Rush t-shirt. Oh wait, I already know they don't.