Hair: Getting my childish wish and my attempt to undo it

When I was little I had ridiculous hair. It was golden, curly and shiny for days. I always remember older women gushing with how much they loved it every time they saw me. I hated it. I wanted boring hair like everyone else's. It was a source of ridicule for me at school it made me different and different got you noticed by the other kids which in my experience was never a good thing.

Naturally fate being the fickle friend she is, I was granted my wish to not have curly hair but not in the way I'd hoped for. From my late teens my hairline started receding. At age 23, on my wedding day, you can see that the temples are gone and the centre are not long for this world. This got worse until 2016 when it was clear that I was going to be completely bald pretty much. I may have disliked my hair as a child but I'd have taken my wild curly hair over being bald any day. It repulsed me and it was also one of the many reasons why I thought transitioning would be impossible.

I needed to try and change it somehow so in 2017 I started taking finasteride. It is funny that you can just go on a website and get it without any questions asked. It's the exact opposite of the gatekeeping trans people go through but I was still glad I could just click a few buttons and a few days later it turned up. It stopped the rot and it stopped receding but I didn't get much regrowth.

As I entered the early days of my transition several friends encouraged me to try wigs. I even bought one. I looked ridiculous (You'd really need me to consider you a friend to show you this!). Somehow the idea of wearing one felt unacceptable to me. It felt like it would be play acting and pretending rather than it being authentically me. So my options were embrace being a bald trans woman or look at hair transplants.

Having scoured the internet to learn about all the different kinds that exists, all the pros and cons and different places you could do them I basically narrowed down my choice to ones that were UK based, had good before and after pictures and allowed me to contact them in a way that didn't involved the phone. I know it's not the most scientific way but to be honest it's a little overwhelming.

So in Jan 2021 I contacted the Harley Street Hair Clinic. Home to hair transplants to the rich and famous including Wayne Rooney. They helpfully did an online consultation and I sent them these pictures.

They got back to me and after various back and forth arranged an in person consultation in June that year. At this point I was only out to a few people and going through my non-binary compromise phase. They asked me what I wanted my hairline to be like and I had a decision to make. Get what would be standard for someone who looked like me or specifically out myself and ask for a feminine hairline (they're surprisingly different). I gathered together all my spoons and with some gentle encouragement from Beth I proudly announced I'd like them to do a feminine hairline.

'Of course but why don't we draw both on you so you can see if it's definitely what you want' So I left their fancy offices covered in purple marker pen, and booked in for a two day procedure in July.

As the day arrived I walked through London at 07:30 in the morning a mixture of apprehension, excitement and anticipation. It was a beautiful warm summers day and I found myself day dreaming about what the future might hold for me. It felt like I was finally taking a tangible step towards who I wanted to be and for the first time in a long time I could imaging a future me that felt more comfortable in her own skin.

After two days of lying in awkward positions and someone working intensely for 8 hours on your scalp I was done. I was exhausted and sore but it felt like a real milestone to have completed. I looked in the mirror with my shaven head and I could see the outline of my new hair line. Hair transplants are not instant results they take about a year to work fully. I was in no doubt that there was a limited to what could be done because of the extent of loss I had.

Despite all that right there in that moment I felt a world of possibility, that maybe I could transition and maybe just it would be ok for me. That thought hadn't really ever been possible for me before and I was under no illusion that I was unlikely to 'pass' as a trans woman but this at least gave me hope I might be seen as a trans woman rather than just a slightly weird looking man.

Watching it slowly grow and then fall out and then regrow require patience that I really didn't want to have but I can say without doubt that it was absolutely worth it. Being able to grow my hair out, learning how to manage my curly mop, going to the hairdressers for the first time, being able to talk hair with other people and bond over shared curly hair experiences are all things I never thought I'd be able to take part in. One more step along the way of being authentically me. Even when it's a frizzy mess it brings me so much joy.

I'll do a separate post with all the technical info about transplants and the procedure for those who care but this one is more a reflection that transition is a process where each step makes you able to imagine a future that would never have seemed possible before you took your first step. It's meant as an encouragement to other trans people who can't imagine transitioning because of all the reasons they'll never be seen as their true gender.

I'm still so far away from where I hope to be but I'm also at a point I could never have imagined when I started. You can be too. For me it was hair and for you it might be something else but trust yourself and find your hope and you'll be that little bit closer in no time at all.