On Queer Haircuts, Gatekeeping, and the Value of Identity

Sometimes a haircut is more than just a haircut, and that’s fine.

For every queer person, coming out is a defining experience, not unlike a volcanic eruption. It is preceded by a slow build of pressure as we come to terms with our own identity and consider the potential ramifications of telling the people most important in our lives. Next comes the moment of declaration, a release that catches some people by surprise, and may be violent or traumatic. Coming out is transformative, sometimes destructive, and creates change that cannot be undone.

Like an eruption, that first coming out shapes the world we will occupy as queer people — and some of us do not survive.

It’s also not something we only experience once. For queer people, life is full of little coming-out conversations: Every time we make a new friend, start a new job, join a new club or sports team, there is that question of when and how we will announce ourselves, and how we’ll be received. But it’s that first coming out — the one where we come out to our parents, our relatives, and our closest friends — that carries the most risk, and shapes us the most profoundly.

I’ve done it twice. The first time, in my late teens to early twenties, I came out as gay. And yes, it took me a few years to have those conversations. I began with my most trusted friends, and eventually worked up the courage to talk with my parents. That’s how frightening it was.

The second time, in my late 20s, was almost as frightening. I’d been living as an out gay man for almost a decade, forming friendships and relationships in the Philadelphia gay community, even working for an organization championing gay rights. Now I had to tell them that I’d fallen in love with a woman, that we’d been dating for some time, and that it turns out I’m bisexual.

I feared I would lose their friendship and respect. I feared I’d be seen as a fraud, like I’d only been “playing gay” to advance my career. I feared I’d be ostracized from the community I’d always found so welcoming. More than anything, I feared that I would lose my sense of self, the queer identity that had finally brought me confidence after a childhood of social anxiety.