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

[Awning10]

twitter.com/i/status/1224664146257620994

It must be so hard being the first person ever to want your hair in an unstereotypical cut for your sex. I’m thinking I should make a special blog when I go to the barbers tomorrow, where I shall very boringly sit my very female body down in the chair and instruct the barber on the very masculine cut I want, then very boringly film the barber do the cut, then I will very boringly pay the barber, say thank you and walk out of the door.

Why is the very changeable characteristic of hair style, which can be turned into whatover the owner wants, used to stand in as a proxy for (the impossibility of) changing sex?

Nobody knows.

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

While it’s ultimately a first world problem, I can relate somewhat, having also been refused service at a barbers for being female (not for wanting a female haircut as I didn’t, for my actual sex). It was pretty humiliating and done rudely too.

I think it’s a situation where normally they should provide the service but could use one of those EA2010 exclusions. I wouldn’t want to force a barber who had (for example) religious objections to touching a woman’s hair to have to do so, but neither should I have to go to a salon for a basic man haircut that they’d charge me £35 for and probably get wrong.

FFS! Way back in the 80s I worked out that both hairdressers and barbers could keep my flatop neat and tidy. So I persuaded the local barber that he really could cut a woman's hair! And then persuaded most of my friends to use his shop.

Alternatively the more gender bending males in my then friendship group wanted a good salon who would help them grow weekday office freindly hair that back combed to Boy George type perfection at the weekend!

We didn't give a fuck about the feelz of it, we just wanted someone who was good at the haircut we wanted!

What hairdresser does she go to that asks if she's male, female, trans or gay? They might ask general pleasantries so as not to awkward, but I have never heard one ask personal questions about sexuality before cutting hair.

She's so close to getting it when she notes that females always pay more, and also when she explains that she feels like an intruder in a barbers because of her female biology, but is far too desperate to insist that practically everyone else is completely happy with gendered expectations and it's only the very special trans/non binary people that suffer so acutely.

Warning! This is a poem

It is interesting how services for makes have no qualms or problem with enforcing the exemptions of the EA2010. I am thinking of Hampstead pools, saunas, men’s toilets etc.

Males not makes

Has anyone managed to watch all the way to the end?

I lasted about 50 seconds

There have been unisex hairdressers for decades. I can't believe it's too hard to find one.

Pair of clippers is £20. Would save you a lot of drama love.

Has anyone managed to watch all the way to the end? I may have made it that far... but no more!

She / ze / they need to work a bit on their presentation skills, unless mid word hesitation is the in thing these days! She'd not last 10 seconds at our local pub's Poetry Slam (yes, we really do )

Zana I didn't last long either.

Zanahoria I watched to the end!

She is uncomfortable with the expectations of femininity that are put upon women. Join the club. The extrapolation from 'quite like short hair' to 'don't know which toilet to use' is such a huge leap that I can't help feeling sorry for her.

Who told her that it's not ok to be a masculine woman? That you might not actually be a woman if you don't fit sexist pigeonholes? Genderism is harmful.

I wonder if it would be considered offensive/gender stereotyping to be asked "anything for the weekend, sir"?

I don't go to the hairdressers, I learnt to cut my own hair, it looks better when I do it and the price of a haircut pisses me off. I do agree with the video that it shouldn't cost twice as much for a woman's haircut. The rest of the stuff she was saying was just blah blah blah.

But the implication seemed to be that women who identify as women would be more than happy to pay the extra. It is only special people like her who object.

JFC I feel sorry for these people. What a crap youth movement they're having.

We had ridiculous and often GNC haircuts. We enjoyed them. We did them ourselves. We didn't go around feeling oppressed as the mainstream hairdressers didn't understand our style. We didn't expect them to, that's the whole point of counter culture.

This whole NB malarky doesn't look much fun to me.

All teenagers (as a group) are bold and brave and stupid in my opinion. At least we had fun doing it though. I'd much rather be taking MDMA and dancing till dawn (early 1990s) than taking testosterone and complaining that marking bods haven't worked out how to serve my niche. Poor sods.

I think that feminism has been misrepresented to younger generations, and for some reason they have passively accepted what they've been told instead of doing their own research; because they really seem to believe they have stumbled on something new.

Oh dear god. I couldn’t watch more than 15 seconds of that. Is it one of those stupid nationwide adverts? It’s got that annoying flavour about it.

Pick a hairdresser- walk in- tell them where to cut hair from- pay- leave.

It’s very fucking simple. Hairdressers have seen much stranger than you. You aren’t special.

They have to be non-binary as they don’t want to be forced into gendered boxes any more than the rest of us do but also don’t realise they can reject the whole premise of gender ideology (or perhaps peer pressure and indoctrination makes this too difficult) so all they are left with if they are female, want to reject being seen as a sexual object, study physics and maths, take leadership roles, etc is to identify as NB.

Who told her that it's not ok to be a masculine woman? That you might not actually be a woman if you don't fit sexist pigeonholes? Genderism is harmful. Yup! But, 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... she just attempted to hand me my arse on a plate.

My second time trying to explain in pblic why I am GC... and this time I had pictures of me in my youth to illustrate what I meant. Didn't stope her beng unpleasant, but it did start a conversatin amongst the other women there about their own gender bending young adulthoods. Which might have gone some way to explaining to her what I meant!