A question for men: do you really like having facial hair? Like... really?
And it's not Stockholm syndrome?
I disliked my facial hair from the start, but I begin to suspect that -being trans - I might be a terrible judge. Still, I cannot imagine how beard - or worse, beard shadow where the hair is still clearly growing under your skin but you can't get rid of it - doesn't feel like body horror?
Help me understand the beard love.
@danielle for me it's just part of the general mess and chaos of the body. I enjoy the ritual of shaving, and all of the oils and soaps and creams and splashes and scents. My beard annoys me if I let it grow more than a few days, though, so I'm not Stockholm-y with it, I guess. I don't feel any particular horror.
After all, there's fingernails, head hair, pubes... All of them grow in the same kind of way.
I don't discount that someone else may feel radically different, tho...
@prismatic7 Huh. Weird. Makes total sense, and yet completely at odds with my own experience.
I have exactly that same feeling about anything that *isn't* correlated with biological sex: fingernails, head hair, etc, sometimes the maintenance is fun, sometimes it's tedious. But facial hair, androgenic body hair, etc, they all mark my body as masculine and they've made me feel gross ever since they appeared.
Hm. Some days I start to think I really am trans. Go figure.
@prismatic7 Makes sense to me :-). Biological sex, gender identity and gender performance are all distinct things, but they the feel quite related to one another. A perspective I like from a trans philosopher:
https://transphilosopher.com/2016/11/27/trans-without-transition-a-critique-of-gender-identity/
Admittedly, I think there's room for differing opinions on this, but I tend to agree with her a lot.
@danielle which makes sense to me! The markers of gender aren't just on the surface, they're indelibly bound up with our sense of self and understanding of who and how we are. It's right and it's good that we should have autonomy and control of such fundamental things as the individuals we know/feel/believe we are. (If you'll forgive the internet-gender-theorist waffling...)