At the beginning of my life and through most of elementary school, my hair had no spot in my list of insecurities. Then, one day in fourth grade, while the cafeteria monitors dismissed us during lunch, an old friend of mine asked me the question that made me look at my hair in a much different way for the rest of my life: “Do you even brush your hair?” Of course I do. I had thought. In fact, it took me a long amount of time to brush my hair since it was so curly and it knotted easily. After that, every time there was a single strand poking out of my hair, I groaned in frustration, thinking that it would never look brushed.

In sixth grade, I cut my hair to shoulder length and I kept it that way. In seventh grade, while I was discovering my sexuality, I felt the need to wear flannels and beanies so I would look more “butch” because in my mind, it was how I needed to look like because I liked girls. These guys in my math class started saying my hair looked like a bird’s nest so I began to hide my hair in my beanie.

My friends then started saying that after I took off my beanie and my hair was flat, it looked like I had just showered and it was weird. So then, I decided the only solution was to chop off my hair. So I wore it in a very short pixie cut for summer break and most of eighth grade. But in eighth grade, as I started coming out to people as bisexual, and I was involved in the Gay-Straight Alliance and I looked like the “gay teenage girl stereotype” because of my hair, people found reasons to pick on me. They called me “transgender” (which should not be used as an insult) and said that I was a boy, boys would tell me I looked “too gay” for them when I asked them out, and it didn’t help that when adults met me for the first time, they would tell my parents they have a great son.

I became extremely self-conscious of my hair and hated being bisexual. I felt like the way I dressed and the way I wore my hair greatly impacted what people thought of me. They thought “gay” but the truth was I wasn’t gay. I liked girls but I also liked boys. And there was a part of me wanting to wear crop tops and have long hair and look “straight” but then I would look too “straight.” I hated liking boys and girls. I always wished I was either gay or straight because I hated being stuck in the middle. So right at the moment I write this, I am deciding to grow my hair and not care about what other people say my sexuality is. Only I can determine what my sexuality is and how I dress. I am bisexual and sometimes I’ll wear sweatshirts and sweatpants and sometimes I’ll wear short shorts and lipstick. This is who I am. And no one can tell me otherwise.