I started to grow a beard when I was around fourteen. It didn’t happen overnight, no Kafkaesque horror. It was slow and steady, more terrifying by half. My gender identity did not match this physical manifestation.
I fought it as hard as I could with depilatories, bleaches, home wax kits, and tweezers. Spent countless hours “dealing” with “it,” frantically burning and searing and flaying myself in a desperate effort to be free.
It was the beard or me: one of us had to go.
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