Last week, I went to the barbers after putting it off for at least a month. I’d realised my hairline was receding earlier last year and I couldn’t work out how to talk to the barber about it. I considered all my options: medication, Turkey, shaving it all off pre-emptively like my dad. In the end, I decided to embrace it, and spent more time than I’d care to admit looking at pictures of Matt Berninger from The National to reassure myself that I was making the right decision. I booked an appointment at the hipster barber which plays BBC 6 Music, armed with a selection of pictures to illustrate where I thought my hairline was going to end up over the next decade.

When I made the decision to begin living as a man, it felt like a process of elimination: no matter how many modes of androgyny and masculinity I incorporated into my fashion choices, I hadn’t felt at ease living as a woman, nor as a non-binary person. The more I imagined moving through the world as a man, the more that felt like the only realistic option.

When I started transitioning, I was aware that I wouldn’t magically acquire the sense of style I’d dreamed of as a teenager. At first I told myself thinking about clothes could wait until I went on hormones, and then I was waiting for top surgery so it felt more sensible to wait until that was over, because clothes would fit differently after that. Besides, most of my transition took place during the first years of the pandemic. I had top surgery in 2021, and immediately after I had recovered, I started working regularly again, and my partner and I began to plan our wedding. Time kept passing.

On my honeymoon I got a phone call offering me an assessment for lower surgery. We had just passed The Old Man of Storr on a coach trip. Our guide told us that in Scots Gaelic, the name for it is Bod an Stòir, which supposedly translates to ‘the dick of Storr’. I also desperately needed a wee and the toilets at the Storr were too busy for the coach to stop.

After a year of being examined by various surgeons and having to delay for work-related reasons, I had another consultation with my surgical team booked after I told them I was ready for the operation. I thought that it would be a box-ticking exercise after so many appointments, but in the course of speaking to the urologist about changes to their surgical procedure, it became apparent that the specific approach we had been planning together would most likely cause far more complications than positive outcomes. Mainly that I might constantly feel the need to wee. Remembering the painful two hours it took to get to the next bathroom in the Highlands, I decided to leave this specific surgical pathway. This doesn’t mean I won’t ever have surgery, but it does mean I would have to pursue an alternative option I’m less keen on, with waiting lists so long that they feel indefinite.

Effectively, I don’t have any more milestones to justify procrastination. Which means I have to confront the real reason I never got around to dramatically reinventing my personal sense of style: I simply do not care enough to devote the time or the money to the way I look. I am aware that being able to accept this is a privilege specific to trans men, as very little is expected of men in that regard anyway. I don’t think avoiding female beauty standards was why I transitioned, but it has been a benefit.

My hair, though, has always been an exception. I used to dye it bright red, and having a long fringe felt integral to my personality, especially as I’d had one since I was 14. Although I knew there was a high probability that testosterone would lead to male pattern baldness, I always imagined myself at the end point with a fringe like Ben Whishaw. But then I’d always forget to tell the barbers I began seeing to cut in a fringe, and I would spend the next few weeks feeling exposed and uncomfortable.

After my last trip to the barbers, I have about as much of a fringe as is possible with my current hairline. I don’t miss my old fringe as much as I thought I would. When the barber was finished and showed me my reflection, I saw a man in his mid-thirties, with a hairline about where you’d expect at this age, and I felt relieved.

The most I’ve deceived myself was after transitioning. I didn’t confront the possibility my hairline would recede. I couldn’t accept that the surgery route I wanted was not viable. I kept telling myself I’d wear better clothes at some point in the future, and ignoring that I couldn’t bring myself to throw my band t-shirts and jumpers away. None of that was purely because I transitioned. The desire to fix all the things we feel inadequate about is encouraged by the consumerist society we live in. I thought I was wise to this, but paradoxically, the more I could act on my dysphoria and the happier I felt with my body, the harder it was to remind myself that some things might need to be accepted.

I’ve always found the phrase “authentic self” jarring. The hypocrisy when consultants say this rankles because there is nothing less geared towards a truthful self-expression than the UK’s clinical pathways for gender transition. But I don’t enjoy it when other trans people say it, either. I lived as truthfully as I could before I transitioned, I gave it all a solid go, and it doesn’t feel like I’m being fair to myself to claim some sort of deceit was in play all along.

At the same time, after transitioning, I look in the mirror and I see an exhausted, baby-faced adult man with imperfect facial hair, badly fitting glasses, and a perpetually overgrown haircut, wearing a novelty jumper and Uniqlo cords. It makes me laugh. How absurd, after all this gate-keeping and medical intervention, to finally see who I was all along, and it’s the exact type of guy I’ve always seen twelve of at every DIY indie-pop show and alternative comedy night. It’s my favourite kind of punchline, though - the sort that makes you laugh with catharsis and relief at being confronted by the truth.

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Thanks for reading!

I don’t really have much else to say this time around - it’s Christmas burnout season after all. If you enjoyed this, please tell a friend, and if you specifically want to donate to my novelty knitwear fund, you can leave me a tip here.

I shamelessly ripped off the title of this from a Billy Bragg song, but he’s an ally so I think it’s fine.

Until next time!