All of the empathy training in the world pales in comparison to experiencing the effects of real, unmanufactured hatred based on an immutable aspect of your identity. When I saw her name on my list of patients I rolled my eyes and groaned. Ethel was scheduled for 30 minutes of occupational therapy this Saturday, but […]
I wanted to say that this was deliberately less cute, less likeable; that I’d spent years with hair that was trouble – a mask. I wanted to say I was done hiding behind girliness. “You have so much hair!” the stylist said, ruffling my scalp. Her touch was intimate, for a first meeting, but I […]
It’s as if gray-haired women have become an endangered species. And this is a shame, because I’m starting to warm up to the idea that aging hair can be beautiful. As I approach my 40th birthday, I’ve observed an interesting trend among women my age and older: patches of gray or white hair are nowhere to […]
Why does something as minor as not being able to find a parking spot, or running out of time to prepare for a meeting, cause my brain to issue these Code Red alerts? Claws gouge the center of my chest. Someone, something, forcibly pulls half of me to the left, half to the right. It […]
We’ve never had the privilege of living in a world where our appearance wasn’t viewed as our primary form of social capital. Hair and makeup, body glitter, eating right…on the bright side of beauty there’s unicorn eyeshadow palettes and healthy living. But there’s a dark side, too, that’s explored and examined in the fascinating book Beauty […]
When I lift my head and face myself in the mirror, I realize that I have no idea what other people see when they look at me. We are the only people in the gym’s stretching room, two older women, one of whom is doing a backbend and the other one, whose back hasn’t bent […]
Quitting isn’t a dirty word. Growing up I remember being excited to take an exam I’d seen my upper classmates take already – it was supposed to tell you what kind of career you were best suited for. Once you got the results you could begin mapping out your life – what college you were […]
While I will admit, my overall feelings about my body have skyrocketed compared to where they were pre-transition, the reality is that for the trans and non-binary community, our selfies are our growth charts. When I was growing up, I always assumed everyone hated their body as much as I hated mine. I mean, there […]
