Photography Workshop

Hair Self-portrait

During a photography workshop, we were asked to take a self portrait. This could be in any setting, but did not have to be a typical portrait shot of our face. I instantly knew I wanted to work outside rather than in the studio, as I much prefer natural lighting and working with found backdrops. I began thinking about what visually represents me and I came to a conclusion pretty quickly - my hair. My hair has always been pretty long and for me it's a representation of my femininity.

I was 16 when I came out and the main reaction I got from people was shock and "omg you don't look gay". I was rather feminine, not an undercut or rugby ball in sight. I distinctly remember one drunk girl telling me that if she were gay, I would be the perfect lesbian because I didn't look gay at all. As if that were some kind of compliment. At first, I tended to just laugh it off, but the daily disbelief and need to constantly reassure people that yes I am in fact a raging homo got to me after a while. I don't know what people expected to happen when I told them I was a lesbian. Did they expect me to suddenly chop off all my hair and carry a box set of The L Word with me everywhere I went, a mating call to all other potential lesbians out there? After some particularly nasty anonymous tumblr messages claiming I was an attention seeker and not gay at all, I'd had enough. So I rebelled against what I felt everyone expected a lesbian to be, by dressing in the girliest and most feminine way I have done in my whole life. I wore a lot of pink and a lot of floaty clothing.

Selfie circa 2012

In retrospect, I had it a lot easier than many people when they come out and should probably be relieved all I had to worry about was whether people believed I was gay or not, and the fact I dated a boy again pretty soon after coming out probably didn't help these rumours and disbelief. For me, dressing like this was a big "fuck you" to everyone else. But it did lead to a lot of unpleasant interactions with men on nights out, one in particular when my best friends very drunk ex picked me up in the middle of a dance floor and start to dry hump me and aggressively tell me he was going to fuck me against the wall. Apparently the fact I had a girlfriend, whom he had met several times, was not a valid reason for him to stop and he instead began asking what she could give me that he couldn't (in much more vulgar terms). Situations like these are unfortunately probably all too familiar to women, regardless of their sexuality, however I felt like my femininity was somehow an unspoken allowance for men to treat me like that regardless of the fact I liked women rather than them.

So yes, in this self portrait my hair represents my femininity. But it is covering my face, as even now when I dress pretty averagely balanced on the scale of masculine to feminine, my long hair seems to immediately make me more "girly" and I often feel like this femininity and the way that I choose to present myself is all people see about me, and other aspects of my identity are overlooked.