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I remember clearly the first time I was made to feel shame about my body hair. Unsurprisingly, it was during the abject hellscape otherwise known as a middle school science class. There I was, minding my own business, standing by the table where I was assigned to sit, and a boy with thin, rectangular glasses and gelled hair — ahh, the aughts, what a time to be alive — looked at my face and said, rather plainly, “You have a moustache.”
Reader, I must point out that my moustache was just as wispy and ill-designed as his, but that is neither here nor there. I was mortified. Something embarrassing about my body was noticeable enough to others that they had brought attention to it, when all I wanted, as many middle schoolers do, was to make it through the day without crying or spontaneously getting my period.
At the time, all I could think about was how I was subverting the expectations of my assumed gender — girls did not have facial hair, or any obvious body hair. Not if they wanted to remain desirable, that is. Now, as an adult, my only thoughts are questioning why some men feel the need to point out the obvious, when all the person targeted wants to do is exist.
The subject of body hair is tricky, and can often be painful to talk about. Years ago, it became the “cool” thing to throw a big middle finger at the patriarchy and refuse to shave, either your legs or armpits. But when this began occurring, I noticed a trend: the only people being celebrated were white, cisgender, conventionally attractive, with mostly blonde or light body hair. Hmm. OK.
Even when it comes to rejecting beauty norms, there is a standard, and that standard is still the most acceptable type of body. If you’re trans or fat or BIPOC or disabled, your body is automatically othered, and cannot be celebrated, and is, in fact, maligned.
It’s been nearly two decades since that encounter in my middle school science class, but I worry about my body hair. I worry about grooming my face enough to remain presentable at work. I worry about what others may think if I wear a dress because it is god forsakenly hot outside, only to show off my prominent leg hairs. I worry about the hairs on places of my body that no one talks about: like the ones that live at the top of my shoulders, freckled amongst the thick, white stretch marks.
My body hair is a road map to my heritage, to one of the many facets of my identity. I’m still uncertain as to how to label myself — BIPOC feels incorrect — but this is not the hair of an acceptable white person. How do I make sense of an aspect of myself when I should feel comfortable refusing to shave, but I can’t bring myself to bare my legs and reveal everything?
It’s been a journey. It started off as refusing to shave my legs, because like Tina Belcher, I had grown attached to the defiant hairs. And then during quarantine, I questioned whether it was important enough to continue plucking my brows, only to find them outrageously cool when I let them do their own thing. I’ve slowly been allowing my body to just be, instead of acting as the cishet, belligerent male of my own inner psyche. I no longer even own a razor. It’s a revelation.
There’s something subversive about body hair, about flipping off the heteropatriarchy whilst choosing to remain desirable, even when your body is something other than what’s expected.
I’ve known about Alok Vaid-Menon for years — it’s difficult not to when you’re gender noncomforming and curious about who else is out there, who’s representative of the types of bodies cis people assume we have. If you’re unfamiliar with that name, they’re an author, a person whose life is wide open on the internet, another revelation. Transfeminine and stunning, with a personal style that makes my eyes go wide as dinner plates, wearing skin-tight dresses that show off miles and miles of limbs covered in dark body hair.
Here is someone whose body isn’t “acceptable” but who is absolutely glorious. Who embraces themself wholeheartedly. Someone I aspire to be, whose truth spreads across their skin like unchecked ivy. Whenever I wear my knee-length, buttercup yellow dress that celebrates my leg hairs, I think of them.
Beauty does not need to be defined by what is considered standard. In fact, beauty does not need to be defined. Subvert the expectations of your gender. (And yes, I still have a moustache.)
— Kimberly Lopez (they/them) is a queer, nonbinary librarian living in the heart of Lawrence. They can often be found reading romance novels or ranting about the validity of boy bands. Their obsession with Harry Styles is “perfectly normal” and “healthy.” Follow them on Instagram. Read more of their work for the Times here.
