Before we start here let me be very, very clear – I have MANY thoughts on gender coding and stereotyping and similar such nonsense. That’s a much more intense post for another day, and I’ll happily talk about it elsewhere.

This post is my experience, so directed towards those who grew beards as a result of second puberty thanks to T hormones. But if you’re bearded and ftm, mtf, masc, femme, enby, agender, or anything else, please know that you are fantastic and valid.

This is a light-hearted post, one of the million or so things that have happened to and around this transmasc person that never seem to crop up elsewhere.

So let’s talk about beards. Specifically, let’s talk about obsessively noticing, examining, and comparing beards.

Before I even started on T hormones I wondered, well, a lot of things, but one of them was whether I’d be able to grow a beard. My Dad has had one as long as I remember. Older photos show it came in stages – from clean-shaven through sideburns through muttonchops, to finally meet in the middle, but to me, he’s always had a short, neat, trimmed, full beard. He’s the only male in the immediate family, who I regularly saw, on either side who, to me, has always had a beard, nobody else comes to mind. Continue reading →