he wasn't man enough for me

on masculinity, beard transplants and detransitioning

the other day i read an article about a 24 year old man in france who suicided after a botched beard transplant. it was performed by a pretend surgeon, and it left him with irreversible effects and debilitating body dysmorphia. reading it, my chest felt heavy. it’s a tragic, confronting, story - the injustice, his youth, his motives. multiple comments reiterate ‘he was so handsome’, in that comment the ‘why would he do this’ implicit; the answer, ‘to feel more of a man’, also implicit.

i was on a reddit rabbit hole when i stumbled upon the piece. i was investigating whether i, also, should get a beard transplant, in an attempt to rectify the choice i made in my twenties, whilst pursuing androgyny and eternal youth, to laser my facial hair off.

reading that article was the ultimate deterrent; the risks - to be further agonised by my looks, to create another layer of disconnect with my body - far too high. but i’ve been reflecting on what’s landed me here. on the whiplash i feel, after years of doing everything i could to feel the least like a man, to now be on the opposite spectrum, to, just like that man in france, want to feel more of a man.

it’s something i feel repugnance writing, but a sad truth that’s been, slowly, mostly unconsciously, creeping in. it’s an aspiration i’ve witnessed over the years in men of all proclivities and one i’ve relentlessly shamed and all it represents, vapidity, conformity, misogyny. to be wanting to be more of a man almost always translating to being worse of a human.

emerging within me, i’m unsure of its source, unsure of what to do with it, unsure of whether it’s driven by gender alignment or desirability. maybe just ease.

a few months ago, i was walking home from the lesbian bar at 11pm on a saturday night, a teenage boy a few metres in front of me. he eventually reaches his destination, taps his phone and enters a brightly lit 24 hour gym. a nothing, mundane, scene, but one that filled me with sadness - why was he not at the club?

it was at the same time i had a broken arm following a bike accident; i remember mentioning to two separate homosexual acquaintances i couldn’t exercise for a few months - both (jokingly?) expressed they would develop suicidal intentions were they in my shoes, a take both so ableist and so bleak.

i don’t share these in some anti-gym sentiment - i believe in science and its proof that exercise produces endorphins - but i struggle to believe that a young boy would choose to spend a late weekend night at the gym, or that a gay man would lose his mental regulation were he not to work out (his upper body), purely because of their love for fitness. i struggle not to see an association between obsession over exercise and the quest of masculine attainment and the subsequent sense of worth associated with it; i struggle not to see that as detrimental.

the harm of the patriarchy on boys and men is becoming more of a widespread topic; with more conversations and spaces challenging, questioning and complicating notions of what is manhood. but, in truth, they still feel unsatisfactory.

the dawn of mental health initiatives pushing men to open up about their mental health, encouraging vulnerability, sits within a paradigm where certain hardships are acceptable (work, social isolation, anger) but many still aren’t (sexual trauma, fear, purpose), still abiding to societally palatable explorations. it’s okay for boys to cry, but not to have breakdowns. it’s a formulaic defiance, and therefore not defiant at all.

the quest of being man-enough is one designed to always seek more - more money, more muscles, more desire - and simultaneously always seek less - less emotions, less connection, less emotional freedom. a quest that’s ultimately bound to fail.

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a few years ago, at a free dinner for transfeminine people of colour, kuchenga, one of my favourite writers/thinkers, congratulated us, for choosing to live big.

it’s maybe a simple sentiment, but it felt so incisive, rang so true. that notion that to actively choose to embrace femininity and/or womanhood, in lieu of safety and comfort, was to make the choice of living big. i held onto it with pride.

over time, i made the choice to depart from transness and recently, reflecting on kuchenga’s statement, i have found myself wondering whether, by choosing to detransition, i chose to shrink myself, to not live big. it’s hard not to see that as inherent to manhood: men travel less, men are less bisexual, men have less close friends, men seek help less, men are more likely to take their own lives.

and whilst nothing about my journey feels small - truth-seeking, in all its forms, rejects stagnancy, embraces expansiveness - the confines of manhood always do. but, just as much as i see repression in men all around me, i cherish the glimmers of genuine freedom i sometimes spot.

i saw one in my friend waking me up in the middle of the night coming back to our hotel room, gleefully giggling about having kissed his crush. i saw one in another friend and i watching a twerking tutorial in the middle of the night on the big tv, excitedly practicing our moves together in the mirror. i saw one in my dad’s speech at my sister’s wedding, sobbing as he mentioned his first child, whose loss he experienced more than thirty years prior.

the temptation to give into repression, to perform stoicism, to conform, is, inevitably, potent — who wouldn’t want a (supposedly) easier life — but the reminder to transgress, to stop performing, even just for a moment, is a reminder to breathe, one we should always listen to, regardless of how hard it can feel.