Lesbian Hair

My hair used to be long. I mean really, really long. Like, it would get caught in my pants kind of long.

For decades I was trying to fit into the mold of “straight, Christian woman”. And my long hair was part of the way I did that.

I hid behind my hair for a really long time. I did think it looked cool. And it’s fairly unusual to see hair that long. It takes commitment after all.

And I clung to the femininity of it. I never felt like I was attractive to men. But I thought that my super long hair helped remedy that. Of course I didn’t understand that it wasn’t my looks that drove men away. I was giving off major “don’t come near me” vibes. I just didn’t realize it.

I’d been thinking about cutting my hair for years. In fact, I had a secret Pinterest board of short hair with hundreds of pins. And in my “straight years” I’d tell my kids I wanted to cut my hair. And their response was always, “do it Mom!”

But I never did.

I was afraid I’d look like a lesbian.

Turns out, that’s not actually a bad thing.

So about 4 months after I came out, my long french braid started to feel really heavy. It’s not that it had gotten any longer. It was the spiritual and emotional weight of that hair. That hair held a lot of baggage and a lot of trauma.

So I decided the time had come. My original plan was to do it all in one chop. I was going to go from waist-long hair to a pixie. 

I didn’t get haircuts very often. I usually went to Great Clips once a year and got 4 or 5 inches cut off. That was it. So I didn’t have a stylist. And I wasn’t going to trust this to a cheap walk-in salon.

So I researched. I read all the Yelp reviews. I picked a salon and made an appointment with the woman who will henceforth be known as “The Mean Lady”.

I showed up on time for my appointment, but she was 20 minutes late. 

I was so nervous and unsure. Cutting off my hair was a HUGE deal for me. Beyond huge really.

So I hemmed and hawed and got really scared of going all the way to pixie. 

The Mean Lady didn’t like this. She was behind schedule and she was not the least bit interested in how difficult this was for me. She was rude and irritated. She made the whole experience pretty awful.

So, I didn’t go for the pixie. I cut off about 18 inches and ended up with a shoulder-length style that looked pretty cute. Not the gayest haircut, but it did come from a picture of Dana from The L Word. So it was a little gay.

A few weeks later I decided to go shorter. I was NOT going back to The Mean Lady. So I did more yelping and found someone else.

She was nice and fun. So it was a good experience… all the way up until I put my glasses back on at the end of the haircut. HOLY SHIT. I looked like I was wearing one of those old-timey leather football helmets.

Have you ever had hair panic? The level of hair panic I experienced that day was incalculable. I rushed home and facetimed two of my more fashionable friends. They didn’t sugar coat their reactions. It really was that bad.

I couldn’t wait for it to grow out enough to get it cut again. 

And believe it or not, I went back to The Mean Lady. I thought I could stomach a miserable hour if I got a good haircut and avoided hair panic.

That was my first official lesbian pixie.

Since then I’ve moved on from The Mean Lady — due to a most unfortunate bangs incident.

Now I drive over an hour to go to a gender neutral hair salon run by queer people. It’s lovely.

But it feels good to walk around with lesbian hair. I still get hair panic after almost every cut. But I suspect that has more to do with identity than the actual hair. 

As my hair has gotten shorter and lesbianer, I have felt more vulnerable. The person I’ve been hiding all these years is visible on the outside. And it’s a little scary.

But I’m getting used to it. And I like my short hair. 

Maybe it’s time to take the next step. A tattoo or a nose piercing. What do you think?

Yes, this really was me. I don’t recognize her anymore.

This was my first big haircut in over 20 years. I went to The Mean Lady.

Hair Panic. This was the old-timey football helmet cut.

Ahhhhh. That’s better. I actually totally copied this one from a lesbian Facebook friend.