I’m a woman.* I have a beard.** These are my stories about my experience with my beard – people’s reactions, my reactions to their reactions, and what I’ve learned about myself, gender, identity, race, class, assumptions, and people through these interactions.
Eventually, I hope to compile these stories into a book.
*I’m a female-bodied person who was tagged female at birth. I mostly identify as female in my daily life, but I also identify as gender-fluid/-queer/-variant/-unaffiliated. In various settings in my life I’m sometimes male-identified.
**My beard grows on its own, without the assistance of creams, pills, or added hormones. It is dense and curly – it’s more than a few stray hairs, and it’s obvious and visible even from a distance or in blurry pictures. It started growing when I was about 13, and I shaved and tweezed for years to keep it hidden. In May 2008, I started letting it grow. I’ve been bearded more or less continuously since then.
Some of these stories are password-protected for privacy. If you’d like to see these posts, email me for the password. If I don’t know you, please explain who you are and why you’d like to see these posts.
beardstories 