The struggles of getting a haircut as a non-binary person

I saw this on twitter this morning.
I then walked to my local supermarket in my unremarkable, not very woke, provincial town.
On the way I past one unisex hairdressers and one barbers. The barbers had a sign in the window saying ‘women’s short back and sides £8’.

I liked the tweet It doesn't even rhyme, bring back Pam Ayres

Some of these tweets are very funny. I did actually LOL at some of them.

My hairdressers does both men’s and women’s hair. Mind blowing.

I work at a university and there is a hairdresser passed by thousands of students a day that does men's and women's hair.
But I bet they would look at this poor girl and say "nah, sorry, you aren't either, go away".
Oh wait...

I'm loving some of the comments on twitter 🤣

This has finally woken up followers I have there and elsewhere. More people are starting to see what is happening, and asking questions.

Who knew something as simple as getting a fucking hair cut would get so many to wonder wtaf is going on. Sports, protected spaces etc, nothing. I can understand why. Everyone has a hair story 🤣 It's something lots of people can relate to.

"I booked my top surgery"

Trotted out like

"I booked my flight to Ibiza"

Or

"I booked a table at my fave restaurant."

(In the linked film.)

I've got short, bleached hair (in a style similar to the video to be honest). I go get it cut and bleached... problem solved. It doesn't require an existential crisis or seeking to be offended - find somewhere that cuts it how you want it, go there, job done.

Well, male as default is probably best expressed in the trans movement by males keeping and simply renaming their genitals, and females who wish to transition, or simply be 'non binary' feeling it necessary to physically bind their breasts or have them surgically removed.

I don't there's a much starker illustration than that, tbh. Even this daft video realizes that women pay the price of gendered inequalities, but their answer, like so many before, is to set up a special exemption route for the few, rather than an actual feminist response which would be to fight against the structural inequalities for all women.

This is why this is all antithetical to feminism and is, in fact, self serving individualist capitalism.

I commend this video from Magdalen to you as another example of this kind of self serving anti-feminist thinking. Ash Hardell got very whiny at Magdalen in response to this.

My main query about this is that the poet's voice appears to be breaking compared to earlier films over the last year.

So how is presenting as male non binary?

Why is male the default?

I would love for my life to be so straightforward that I had that much time on my hands to spend all that effort getting worked up over something so utterly ridiculous and pointless.

It's like sinead o Connor and Marilyn et al didn't ever exist?!

openbarbers.com

Here you go. Trans and NB friendly hair services.

Kantastic

Must I forever be trundling down to the fiddle shrinkers by these piteous posts? Oh the humanity!

99% of barbers or hair stylists don't give an actual gold plated shiny shit who's hair they are cutting or what style they are cutting it in, it's a "do" like any one of other thousands they will do in their careers.

More than likely within a couple of days they won't even remember ever having met you never mind which cut you wanted unless you were a regular.

look at me! Look at me!

I have my head shaved down to a number zero. I'm a woman. I merely walk into the barbers, or hairdressers, and they say: "What would you like today?" and I say: "Number zero all over please". And they say "Right you are". And they do it.

I really wasn't aware that I should be making a drama of this and sharing it on Twitter. I am SO sorry for my tardiness

Well, at least it's united the Twitterverse. I can't see a single supportive comment. Not even a meme.

Oh, FFS.

As far as sex goes, we're binary. As far as gender goes, we're fluid.

We're all the same; you and your fucking hair are not special!

I would volunteer to chop that barnet off

The problem is IN her head, not ON her head.

In my experience, Barbers and Hairdressers don't care who/what you are as long as you pay them.

The thing that made me a bit puzzled is that hairdressers are being represented as these bastions of gender stereotypicality.

ROFL. In a hipster barbers maybe - when I peeked in the expensive one to consider sending my son it was all beards and moustaches and waistcoats. The normal barber, with the queue round the corner on a Saturday morning, is staffed by men and women in black t-shirts and trousers. The most flamboyantly coiffed person being a bloke.

I'm sure most of these work-a-day barbers would cut anyone's hair for the relevant price (more expensive for long hair I noted when waiting for my eldest) - you're just going to get the standard cut - if you want something more unique, you're going to have to go to a hairdresser and pay more. Ridiculous to make a fuss about it when there's hair cutting places everywhere these days, to suit all pockets and requirements.

I've never seen an article on The Struggles of Being Nonbinary that didn't read like a parody.

I'm worried the video might be too high-cringe to endure, but I'll steel myself and try to stick through it. This is one of my favourite comedic genres.

having tried to discuss this with a 20 something recently, I ain't going to try again, not alone! They can be vicious when trying to defend their perspective! That I was not even criticising her was lost in translation

Yikes Curiousaboutsamphire I was hoping that this might be more of a teenage phenomenon. Is nobody teaching critical thought to young people any more?!

It's a shame that the young woman in this video hasn't been given the tools to recognise sexism and be content with who she is. No labels required, her energy can safely be directed elsewhere. She's fine just as she is.

I could weep for our youth. Can we start sending music videos from the 80s into schools? Will someone please show them Top Of The Pops circa 1983! Someone page Annie Lennox!!!!