It started with a haircut. Instead of my usual two-inch trim, I decided to get my hair cut short. Not slightly-above-my-shoulders-short, but Emma Watson, Anne Hathaway, short.
Sitting in the salon chair, I felt a sense of jittery excitement. During the cut, the stylist surprised me by repeatedly asking, “How are you doing? Are you feeling okay about this?” I kept reassuring her that, yes, this was what I wanted.
While I expected my new look to draw some attention at school, I wasn’t prepared for the mean-spirited comments I received. Some said I looked like a boy, while others questioned my sexuality, asking if my haircut was my way of coming out of the closet. And then there were those who teased my boyfriend about dating a lesbian.
I don’t know why my haircut bothered so many people. Was it simply because it was unlike the style almost every other girl at TCHS wears? And why is long hair associated with femininity, and short hair is an indicator of masculinity?
Let me just say, being misidentified as a lesbian wasn’t the insult; the insult was that being labeled as a lesbian was supposed to be an insult, as if being gay is not okay.
Oddly, this negative backlash did cause me to look at myself differently. Suddenly, I disliked what I saw in the mirror. I felt as though I had lost my femininity. Mornings were spent going through my closet trying on outfit after outfit. Wearing t-shirts, button ups, anything that wasn’t girlie, guaranteed that my school day would be littered with negative comments. Finally, as time passed, my peers became bored with my haircut, and their comments lessened and then stopped completely.
Admittedly, one reason it was easy for me to get past this treatment was because I have a strong support system. My friends and my involvement in Dragonflicks, Rampage and Link Crew make me feel like I belong at school. But not every student feels this connected. And that’s a problem. Students who feel isolated and alone may not recover from bullying.
While my experience with bullying was relatively mild and thankfully short lived, it had a profound impact on me. It turns out that it takes courage to be different. Every person deserves to be able to discover his or her own individual style without the fear of bullying–especially in 2013.
As for me, I’ll continue to have short hair until I get tired of it. Then I’ll decide which hairstyle will come next, no opinions asked for, needed or wanted