I remember growing up, I was a big fan of the TV show “That 70's Show." It had a catchy intro and featured a group of teenagers, one of them even a migrant like me! In one episode, one of the characters went ring shopping for his girlfriend. The store owner tried to help him choose a ring by putting it on and pretending to be her. However, the boyfriend was “thrown off” by the … [Read more...]
Notes From a Feminist Trans Guy on the Gendered Policing of Body Hair
“I mean, look at you, man. With that mustache you look like a real man. Everybody should want that." So said a guy to me in my bro-far-masculine-of-center gender support group. He said it as a means of establishing camaraderie and admiration. I felt shame. “Girls don’t have hairy backs,” said my nine-year-old peer at the city pool. I was wearing a light blue, shiny … [Read more...]
Hair Apparent: Being Brown, Femme, and Loving My Body Hair
There is a tumbr post making the rounds on my dash. The first picture in the series is of an Iranian princess Zahra Khanom Tadj es-Saltaneh from the Qajar dynasty. The legend goes - she was considered so beautiful that about a dozen or so men died after she rejected them. The photograph stands in stark contrast to the usual “exotic” representation of Middle astern princesses … [Read more...]
Finding New Ways To Talk About My “Bad” Skin
I have "bad" skin. It’s not as bad as it used to be, but I still have holes, pits, scars, blackheads, pimples. It’s hard for me to even write those words, and for reasons I can’t fully understand I feel shame – or maybe embarrassment is a better word. As a fat activist for over two decades you would think that I could talk about my skin with the ease I talk about my fat. … [Read more...]
This Summer I Stopped Hiding: Reclaiming Femmeness and Body Hair
Summer is here, and so are the haters. As the temperatures rise, so do people’s expectations of our bodies and behaviors, of what we can wear and what we should hide. Society has taught us that there is a certain aesthetic to a “summer body”, but what are all other bodies supposed to do during the season then? Hide and wait for fall to begin? This summer I choose to … [Read more...]

The Body Is Not an Apology
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