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…