How a String of Major Haircuts Helped 1 Writer Reclaim Her Identity After Coming Out

"Once I started dating women when I graduated, I was really afraid to do the things I've always wanted to do," Hudson said. "A lot of that could be internalised homophobia and living in that homophobic culture where, in a lot of conservative places, this sense of 'you can be gay, but you should still adhere to the norms of your gender presentation.'"

She continued, "But hair felt like this symbol to me, and there was something about cutting my hair short that felt like it would be this outward representation of the transformation and change that I was feeling inside of myself. Not only can that be a more masculine presentation, but it's also an actual shedding of part of you that actually holds the past too."

The First (Hair)cut Is the Deepest — and Only the Beginning

For her first-ever chop, she gathered the troops — which, at the time included her then-girlfriend and best friend — and went in to the salon with the intention of getting a short boyish haircut. "I went to a lesbian-identifying hairstylist, and I remember right as she was about to cut my hair saying, 'Maybe don't cut it so short.' Even though I knew what I wanted, I was too afraid to go against this expectation of playing out that gender role, so I ended up with kind of a weird haircut that was in-between long and short. It didn't totally fulfil what I wanted, but it was my first step, and it was a transformative one."

What followed Hudson's inaugural cut was a series of more cuts — each time, going shorter and shorter. After a year in Charleston post-graduation, she moved to Amsterdam for five years. It's there that she says she came into her own, and finally got a haircut that felt like . . . her.

"I wasn't in America anymore, I wasn't in the South anymore — I had this fresh slate where I got to start over," she said. "People in Amsterdam are a little bit edgier with their style anyway. One day I went to this Dutch hairdresser, and she just did away with all of it. It was like she saw me. I looked masculine in a way that was exciting to me, and it felt so freeing. I had been holding onto sort of some flair of femininity or style that I never really liked, but didn't know how to get away from. She shed that for me."

At first, there were your standard hesitations — "What does it even look like under there? What if I have a weirdly-shaped head?" And, of course: "What if I just don't feel right with a buzzcut?"

Still, the draw of a shaved head — and the "Who gives a f*ck?" feeling that comes with it — prevailed. "My girlfriend was the one who shaved my head. I was nervous at first, but now I really love it. I'm sure I'll grow my hair out at some point again, but it's been fun to explore this side of myself. It feels like a further extension of queerness because there is something about walking around with a shaved head that draws a little bit more attention. There's also a lineage of men in my family who have crew cuts, and I don't have a crew cut, but there is a shared toughness of a shaved cut that has a strong connection to my family."

The Ever-Changing Journey of Finding One's Identity

For so many people, hair can hold such a firm grip on someone's sense of self and identity — and frankly, one (or five) haircuts can't change that. But the journey can always evolve.

"I look back to my younger self who's path was maybe more authentically in touch with what I wanted, and I feel now that I'm the closest to that place than I've ever been in my life — to that true, initial expression of who I am and what I want the world to see me as. If I could, I would go back to that young person and dare them to be brave enough to live the outward identity that I wanted. So don't wear makeup in high school if you don't want to and so what if you have short, shaggy hair?"

She added, "I would have encouraged myself to continue living this physical and style aesthetic that I felt aligned with, because you can still have love that way. A lot of my fear was that, if I didn't present how society wanted me to that I wouldn't have love, I wouldn't have community, I wouldn't have acceptance. Now I know that you can have all that — and so much more."

Genevieve Hudson is the author of Boys of Alabama and lives in Portland, Oregon.