3 LGBTQ+ People Share Their Journeys With Body Hair

Brielle Jenkins spent years shaving and waxing her body hair before deciding to embrace what feels right to her. As an artist, she loves to find unique ways to express herself, and playing with hair is one of them. That said, it didn’t happen overnight. “It takes courage to step out of that box and start asking why we feel that pressure,” she tells POPSUGAR. Things didn’t necessarily get easier when she decide to ignore imposing societal gender constructs. She actually felt an opposing pressure to “go all of the ways and never shave again, but it doesn’t have to be one way or the other,” she says.

Once she decided to do what made her feel comfortable, her “world began to open up.” There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to body hair, and it took her time to figure that out. “I don’t shave my armpits but I still shave my legs from time to time because I love the way it feels,” Jenkins says. “It makes me happy to have control over how I present myself.”

Jenkins’ relationship with her body hair has evolved over the years, but it took some adjusting. “I had to get used to some weird looks and comments, especially from the people close to me,” she says. “There was definitely an initial sting, but with time, I’ve become less sensitive. I’m really happy I took the steps to become more comfortable with my natural self.”

Rina London says they still feel pressured to this day to look a certain way. “I find myself feeling more insecure about having armpit hair when I’m presenting as feminine since I know society has deemed female body hair unattractive,” London says. They too initially thought it was “necessary for social approval” to remove their body hair. “As I got older and more acquainted with the queer community, I realised that it’s OK to embrace it,” they say. “Now, my body hair helps to affirm my gender as someone who identifies as non-binary.”

One of their favourite ways to express themselves is through their eyebrows, which they shave. “I’m not sure what shaving my eyebrows expresses to the rest of the world, but I just think it looks good,” they say. “It might express that I don’t care what other people think – I’m doing this for me.”

The importance of hair was instilled in Jasmin Prophete from a young age. “Growing up being socialised as a Black woman, I was encouraged to view the hair on my head as the single most beautiful and important aspect of my appearance, and the hair everywhere else as a blight,” Prophete says. “In a society that insists on masculinising Black women, hair has become one of the main ways they can affirm their femininity.” When they hit puberty and began removing the hair around their bikini line, they started to consider why wearing hair in various ways was such a point of stress.

“As I got older and realised I was non-binary, the hair on my head became a huge source of gender dysphoria for me, while leaving my body hair alone felt more euphoric,” Prophete says. “I quit shaving my body hair altogether and spent years in high school pleading my case for a buzz cut to my mom.” For years, their mom tried to change their mind on the matter. “When I finally got the cut a month before the pandemic, it was one of the most freeing moments of my life.”

Needless to say, Prophete’s road to embracing their hair was bumpy. “Besides feeling outside pressure to remove it and look ‘prettier,’ I also developed trichotillomania in middle school and started a habit of relieving stress by pulling it out.” The decision to shave their head, in conjunction with prioritising mental health, helped (although it’s something Prophete still deals with).

Prophete never understood how body hair could be deemed problematic in the first place. “To me, it all looks completely natural and normal, but of course, I was still initially unable to escape internalising the idea that it was bad on my body,” they say. But now, how they style their hair is their favourite form of self-expression.

“I like having the reassurance that even on days when I lack the energy to do a complex makeup look or put together a cool outfit, I can still count on my hair to assert my queerness and love for art and colour,” Prophete says. “I’ve also completely committed to treating my hair like something I am genuinely in a relationship with, and so its health and my mental health now come before anything anyone outside me has to say about it.”