Decrying Gravity

It's nothing particularly impressive.  Most people probably don't think anything of it.  But, for me, it's been a constant source of utter ambivalence.  It is a wall, a mask, a manifestation of apathy, a weapon of authority, an embodiment of masculinity, a stressor of age, and a war within and without myself.

In approximately five days, I will shave it.  In approximately nine days, I will begin laser treatment to begin the extirpation of its remain.  And, fate willing, that will be the last I ever see of it.

Although I am not one for ceremony, I do value symbolism (kind of a requirement  for an English Major).  In many religious traditions, beards are idols of masculinity, not to be shaved but, instead, revered in a patriarchal sense, an embrace of that which defines the male.   In the LGBT community, the word "beard" is (usually) used to describe the false romantic partner of a homosexual (usually a woman for a gay man) who helps the individual keep up a public facade of heterosexuality.

Perhaps appropriately enough, my beard is a queer combination of the two.  Is some senses it is a guise of masculinity, insomuch as masculinity is authority within our culture.  It ages me, accentuates me, separates me from the "boys" I teach.  We mocked this idea in our own senior skit when I was in high school, setting up a scene where an intern, tired of being mistaken for a student, tapes a fake mustache to his face (continued later where the same intern gives a fake mustache to a female intern).  But, truth be told, it's effective.  I am an abysmal authority figure, and I'm convinced that beard is a figurative barrier between me and my students in a way I could not otherwise create.

But so too, both figuratively and literally, is it a shield, a mask.  As much as I hate it, as much as it breaks any illusions I have of my burgeoning femininity, it has kept me in the closet as a matter of course.  I feel ridiculous labeling myself as trans when I foster this infestation of facial hair.  In fact, I actively think "well, I don't need to do much to trangress; the beard dispels the illusion anyway."  Even in my pain, I hide behind it, wait behind it, eager to see it go but scared of what it shall reveal.

I'll write, at length, about my transness, including why I had a beard during periods where it was not "mandated" (so to speak).  But, suffice it to say, shaving it will mark the end of a chapter in my life.  A harrowing one, certainly the most exhausting and chaotic but also the  most fruitful and edifying.  By shaving my beard, for the final time, I'll be closing the book on teaching, on feigned-cisness, on hiding in this body that some cruel god decided to place me in as a cosmically impractical joke.

I don't relish the act of shaving, of course.  Indeed, I'm largely inept at it.  I get so angry at the residual hairs, the unevenness, the fickle skin, that I just want to tear and rend and destroy it.  I feel almost good about the cuts on my face, evidence that I am dedicated to the cause if not successful in implementation.  Battle scars in the fight against biology.

Oh, but look at that skin breathe!  Look at those lips, begging to be highlighted, that mouth praying to be set free.  I have been caged so long, staring through brunette bars.  And on Friday, it ends.

It ends.  My authority, my role as oppressor, my borrowed robes.  I will undoubtedly post a retrospective on my time in education at some point, too, but for now... here's to the last week of my beard.  The last week of my internship.  The last week of my indomitable masculinity.