FUCK UP YOUR BODY

so i was making a zine. i do this a lot, just a little one page zine to get my feelings out. i’ll show it to you. it’s called “this is a sign to fuck up your hair.”

this is a sign to fuck up your hair by tshirt

when i was in high school when my hair was still longer i was waiting for someone to give me permission to cut my hair. i would put up my hair halfway and be like omgg everyone it looks kind of like i have short hair. wouldn’t that be crazy if i had short hair. it didn’t really look like i had short hair but the spirit was there. no one ever said 'yeah you look like you have short hair and you should definitely cut it that short.' like take the hint people come on. i am spelling it out for you that i want to

change my life but i’m scared that doing so will make me unlovable. would you love me if i was a worm. a bald worm, even. anyway i didn’t realize at the time that no one would tell me that. no one wants you to fuck up your hair, whether it’s shaving it off or growing it longer or making it strange and asymmetrical whatever’s genderweird for you. well. some people will tell you that. it took me a little longer to find those people. but i also found that those were the opinions i cared about the most. but if no one has told you yet to FUCK UP YOUR HAIR this is me doing it. do it!!! NOW!

like you deserve to have fucked up hair. you don’t need permission but if you want it, i’m telling you it’s a good idea. you’ll look good. consider this zine the universe letting the stars align to tell you to do something silly to your hair. it’s hair. it’s in a state of constant and inevitable change, just like you, and the sooner you take control of those changes the better. we’re all waiting for you to live the life you want to live. there are obvious caveats. sometimes there are people you have to please. but i know you already know their point of view. i just want to remind you that there’s another one out there. that through all the disapproval, i’d still do it again.

self portrait captioned 'everyone loves my bald head.'

anyway. like the diligent freudian i am i did some introspection after i finished writing all my thoughts out. what was my unconscious telling me? why this zine, why now? maybe this zine was a sign for me too.

it was when i was scanning it in that i realized something kind of mortifying. this zine was about talking myself into starting testosterone. let’s do an edit of it.

**obligatory disclaimer that starting hrt will not fuck up your body. i phrased everything this way for dramatic effect.

the difference of course is that i have a much more positive peer group now than i did in high school. people do tell me i have masc swag and that starting hormones would be based. the point being that i have even less reason to delay. and yet starting testosterone still seemed unthinkable. if i was so baldly self-actualized, what was the problem?

well, i knew what the problem was. it was my family. something i struggle with is that i’m a contrarian who cares a lot about the opinions of others. i’ll often do whatever perverse thing i want, but i’ll angst about it the whole way, wondering how unlikable it will make me. most of my family comes from a conservative chinese background. i am terrified of living my life with pauses before anyone says anything to do with me. it is already difficult to be proud of a bald grandchild even if you love it. why would i make it harder? couldn’t i just wait, wait and meet my grandparents in the middle? wait until— i couldn’t say it.

unsurprisingly, there was a great deal of grief bound up in my feelings around my body. i mourned my past self, who was happier (i hoped, i wished) in their body, i mourned my present self who wasn’t living the life he wanted to live, and i mourned my future self, whose happiness i was deferring everyday. and i mourned my family prematurely, knowing what i was waiting for. my understanding of my gender went hand in hand with this enormous sadness. and also i was/am depressed. so there was that sadness too. i was placing my happiness on a deadline i hoped would never pass.

and then i made a zine. i had already been forced to reckon with the feeling that i was not, in fact, a dead person walking. thanks to various non-transition-related medical interventions, i have become a lot less depressed than i used to be. but i felt like i was contending with that feeling a second time. as i write this, i am making an appointment at planned parenthood to talk about hrt. it feels terrifying and exciting to feel like i’m in control of my life. but i’m so so so happy. some deep mourning has been removed from me.

i want you to join me. i want to share this feeling however i can. i want to document it, for posterity, for accountability, for a reminder that i can be a person i like being. i’ve done it before and i’m going to do it again. fuck up your body forever and ever.