Hair Manifesto

October 6, 2018October 1, 2019 by admin In Art, Performance & Experience 1 Comment

Considerations.

My hair has been a huge part of my life and image since I dyed it blue in 2015. At the time, this transformation was an affirmation of my queer identity. As a 15-year-old, I wanted to stand out from the rest my peers who I found to be conventional and mostly boring at my North Carolinian high school. It was just me and my artistic, unusual, gay friends who had the audacity to look different from everyone else. At the time I relished the feeling of being unique, as identifying myself as an individual separate from my relatively White and monotonous environment.

For three years hair continued to give me some privileges I enjoyed. Aesthetically, it really was beautiful. It suited me well and was quite attractive. It helped me provide an entry point in getting to know people. They saw my hair as a sign of comfort and calm and intrigue and felt the urge, very naturally, to begin a conversation with me about it. It made me stand out in crowds and photos, it made people remember my name. But growing underneath these positives was a colony of negatives, and the hair became a crutch, stunting many aspects of my growth.  Now, as I have become more confident in my individuality, I feel like I do not need the blue to affirm my sense of self. I am trying to find this on the inside, not the outside.

Hair is so easy to change. I can always redye it if I decide that the blue did something more for me that I cannot now see. But in this moment I can only feel the negatives, which outweigh the positives by their depth and gravity. Recently, I haven’t been able to tell if I have kept the blue because I actually like it, or if I just feel compelled to continue because I have maintained this facade for so long.  

This removal of blue is not unplanned. This manifesto is a eulogy, this is a breakup text, this is my preparation for a transition. This is what I have to say to everyone who will ask me “why?”

 

WHY I CHANGED MY HAIR.

These are the negatives of the blue hair that have been rolling around in my mind like stones. They include:

1. For every positive interaction that I have had because a stranger was interested in talking to me about my hair, there are 10 people who talk to me who I wish would just leave me alone. “You have blue hair!” “Do you have to bleach it to get it like that?” “What type of dye do you use?” “My daughter had hair like that.” “I could never pull that color off.”  “What is your real hair color?” ”Blue is my favorite color.” I have been harassed by the same bothersome questions and comments thousands of times, in the form of anything from childlike wonder to a pickup line, from genuine admiration to ignorant demands. People have often yelled out their car windows about liking my hair, terrifying me. The repetition of it was exhausting.
2. Being stared at, a spectacle, is very unpleasant. Being in this woman body makes my life dangerous already, and when I go to Walmart or a gas station alone at night I feel like the hair is a beacon calling out to strangers that I want attention. Imagine knowing if someone is looking at you, they have something to say and will try to talk to you. Maybe I just want to buy some cold medicine. Maybe I have important things to do and don’t want to be interrupted. Maybe I just want to be alone.
3. I do admit I have used the hair to my own advantage. I marketed myself as something less than human in hopes that I could get people to buy into me. My image was just blue and had nothing to do with the person inside of me. My entire online presence, whether in dating or blogging, revolved around my hair. I wonder if that’s the only thing that generates my followers. I wonder why I care.
4. Imagine that your personality disappears and is replaced with a color. To most people who see me, I am not funny or caring or smart, I am just blue. Other people know me but only know some vague idea of me, my colorful ghost. Now I want to be a real person, more than a useless icon. A false goddess people worshiped, I don’t know what for.
5. I think white guilt has driven me in a number of ways to prove I am “not like every other white person” even though of course I am. Sometimes I felt myself using the blue to try to shove away my oppressive identity. I want to humble myself with this color change and continue to reflect on my privilege.
6. 4 bottles of dye = 24 dollars. Bleach and developer = 30 dollars. I repeated spending every other month. 325 a year, 975 for 3 years. And when I originally got it done I went to salons, so 200 dollars an appointment, 2 appointments. Total spending thus far = at least 1,500. Not including time opportunity costs.
7. I harassed my friends until they agreed to spend 5 hours doing my hair, every other month.
8. I ruined pillows and towels in hotels and other places I stayed all across the country. I stained bathtubs and sinks. There was a trace of me wherever I went.
9. I picked myself apart visually when my roots grew back, I become frustrated when my hair grew, trying to forget the inevitable process.
10. I couldn’t wear any color clothes or makeup that was not black, grey, blue or something similar. Some of my experimentation was stunted.
11. I want to give the part of myself who wants to be invisible sometimes some compassion. I think everyone has times they want to disappear, and I can’t.
12. Everyone I have met since coming to color has only one image of me, based in a superficial aspect of my appearance. I want people to know what I really look like.
13. I worry that if I do continue to build myself around the blue, then I leave college and for some reason have to change it, my sense of self will be very fragile and easily destroyed. I want to shoot first.
14. There isn’t anything wrong with my natural hair color. It is ok to want to fit in sometimes. I could be kind of normal for a little while, leave something to be desired. People would actually have to know me to think they knew me.
15. I have looked the same since 2015. Pictures of me for 3 years show someone frozen in time. I need to grow.

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Here is a brief summary of the experience of cutting my hair and dying it brown. I think that the cut itself made the change more palatable for people, as it seemed like another big change that didn’t simply have to do with the color. I feel much better and more like myself with this hair, so I am very glad I had to cut it. I even deleted Instagram from my phone and I  feel great about that. An interesting note was I didn’t need this card for strangers, only people who somewhat know me.

I am glad I made the cards because although I only handed out around 20 of them, they served their purpose of saving me from having to explain my choices over and over. Here are some of the reactions I received

• I  showed the prototype card to a male acquaintance who mocked it. He was the only one who said something derogatory.
• The rest of the reactions were mostly positive and included people not knowing how to respond, and some gave me the card back.
• Some people thought the card was funny
• The best reaction was from one of my bosses who is in the same generation as my parents I think. She laughed and hugged me and asked to keep it which suprised me.

Who knows if people who received the card actually read the whole manifesto. I am just glad I had soemthig to do when people asked me “why.”