A nonbinary person was featured in a video earlier this month sharing the struggles of getting a "simple" haircut when those providing the service ask, "Are you a boy or a girl?" and also being forced to fit into society's "female or male" boxes.
'I'm some thing on the outside existing beside the world as it rolls by all pink and blue'
The unnamed person — who appears courtesy of BBC Scotland — complains that "I'm more of that 'other' (if that's even an option) like I'm some thing on the outside existing beside the world as it rolls by all pink and blue."
Image source: Twitter video screenshot
The individual also shares that usually there are two options when it comes to a haircut: There's a salon, which oozes "that womanly world of perfumed femininity with which I feel like I have little affinity." Then there's the barber shop, "which isn't much better since this voice and these swells in my chest make me feel like an infiltrator."
The speaker adds that those providing haircuts often ask, "Are you a boy or a girl?" and "Am I trans, am I gay, and I don't know what to say. Sometimes I pick my labels to make other people feel OK, but it's never enough to say where I'd like to be trimmed or shaved ... they need to know my sex."
Image source: Twitter video screenshot
The person notes that haircutters say it's the only way they can determine the appropriate rate, as women's haircuts are typically more expensive than men's.
In conclusion
The individual sounds a tad hopeful in the end, noting that in the last few years "drag queens" and "out queer celebrities" have made a big splash upon culture — and then finishes things off with a bang: "We're queer, and we're here ... could you just cut our f***ing hair?"
The struggles of getting a haircut as a non-binary person. https://t.co/YEdYTgCFqV— BBC The Social (@BBC The Social) 1580817660.0
Brutal response
A number of Twitter users didn't hold back their contempt for the nonbinary person's complaints:
- "This really is the new Greatest Generation. My heart goes out to each and everyone of them. Haircuts are the new Normandy beaches."
- "Wtf is wrong with snowflakes? Just go to a unisex hair salon. It's not hard is it."
- "Have we failed entirely as a society? Do we really now pay attention to people that feel unsafe & 'unwelcome' getting their hair cut? Does EVERYTHING have to be unisex to accommodate a tiny minority that keeps inventing problems on a daily basis? How about some gratefulness?"
- "When life is too easy so you need to fabricate some form of struggle."
- "Please send this person to Venezuela for a month. People seem to have entirely forgotten what real problems look like."
- "I'm a women. About 4 years ago I had a mohawk with shaved sides, done by a hairdresser and maintained for a short while by a local barber. No one cared that I was a women, no one. I mean, absolutely no one objected to me having short hair in either the hairdressers or barbers."
Oh, and this one:
@bbcthesocial If only androgynous people had been to the hairdressers before https://t.co/UH2kkoFD73— the riddler (@the riddler) 1582032060.0
(H/T: Louder With Crowder)