As a genderqueer person, shaving my head changed my life

“This was what my heart wanted for so long: a tangible, provable, physical medium of subverting everything that didn’t feel entirely like me.”

This year, Converse’s Pride campaign hinges on one key message: Proud to be. As a celebration of the diverse and full lives of the LGBTQIA+ community, we’re hearing from young queer Australians about what Pride means to them. Here, Fashion Journal contributor Jackie Zhou shares why they decided to shave their head and how that impacted their gender expression.

My gender journey is one riddled with confusion, insecurity, detachment, splintering and healing. My gender identity never feels as tangible as my sexuality. While I identify as queer and am sure I’m sexually and romantically attracted to a whole spectrum of human beings, navigating my gender identity – a part of me that’s solely, completely and wholly mine to uncover – feels a lot more complicated. 

Gender is a very individual and intangible feeling to a lot of people. When we ask ourselves why we identify with the gender label of our choosing without referring to biological characteristics, a lot of us need a moment to think about it. We might not ever arrive at an answer.

Interested to hear how others navigate the world? Head to our Life section.

As part of Converse’s Proud to Be campaign, I had a think about what pivotal moment redefined how I approached my gender identity. I immediately drifted to the day I shaved my hair off. Being AFAB (assigned female at birth), my gender has always been tied to how I look, especially my hair.

I placed so much emphasis on the importance of hair that I mark periods of my life based on what hair I had at the time. Not entirely sure when a life event or experience was? Well, if I remember what hair colour or cut I had at the time and trace it through my camera roll, I’m bound to find something close to what I’m looking for.

Hair was also my way of rebelling against everything I felt constricted to when performing social expectations of me. As a lanky Chinese ‘girl’ expected to be quiet and studious, serious and uncompromising, stubborn and smart, I broke all societal pressures when I was bleaching my hair, cutting it into a bob or dyeing it different colours every three months. 

This was what my heart wanted for so long: a tangible, provable, physical medium of subverting everything that didn’t feel entirely like me. It was my way of saying, “I’m not what you think I am”.

In a way, I think I wanted to prove it to myself too. Changing my hair every season while slowly approaching a place of acceptance and eventual love of my queerness was symbolic to me. But when I yearned for a more masculine look and cut my hair the shortest I’d ever had it, I immediately felt uncomfortable and unlike myself, which only delayed my epiphany of non-binaryness. 

I felt boring and unstylish because I had only subscribed to a particular way of presenting myself for so long. Growing out my hair was the only way I could feel comfortable in myself again, I thought. So when I grew out my hair again and wanted to shave it all off, it came as a surprise to my friends and family, but also to myself.

If I lose my hair, how will I present myself? How will I identify? What if I hate myself for doing it? How will I love myself afterwards? Will I love myself afterwards?

All terrifying thoughts, but alas, once I asked my manager to join me in my bald ambitions and made a fundraising event out of it for the World’s Greatest Shave, I knew I had locked my fate in. So we did it. Lots of people showed up and my friends and sister delighted (a little too much, I should think) in running the clippers through my bleach-damaged locks. We raised a few thousand dollars for charity and it was a heartwarming day. 

But the most surprising part of it all was how good it felt. This symbol of femininity (and by extension, this discomforting identity) was gone. It forced my ego into a place it had never been before. When your whole identity revolves around your style and your hair, it becomes a very profound experience to lose it. It means you have to start again, it means everything that allowed you to grow is gone. It means you must find strength elsewhere in order to find the truest form of yourself. 

And I did! After shaving off my hair, I found more comfort than ever in my identity. That has consequently led to the most self-love I’ve ever experienced. Losing my hair forced me to look inward rather than continuously deflect outward. It allowed me to experience transness in a raw and honest way. 

When reflecting on what it means to be Proud to Be, my ultimate conclusion is this: you should never have to explain or validate your experience of queerness to anyone outside of yourself. I’m constantly having to choose between my relationship with my entirely cisgendered Asian family and living true to myself, and it’s a journey I’m afraid will have to be embarked on for the rest of my life. But I know, at the end of the day, I always have myself to come home to, and that will forever be a source of pride for me.

Check out Converse’s Proud to Be campaign here.