Long hair

 Long Hair

I'm going through my magazines at the moment. I'm mreading National Geographic history and they are talking about Louis (the fourteenth) XIV in the early 17th Century. Louis the XIV and (to some degrere, Charles II, the english monarch who was in exile in france) took to a fashion of wearing long curly hair and because Aristocrats were basically the influencer culture of that time, many others followed suit as did the depictions that valorised an aspirational life.

What does it say that in the 17th century, masculinity was long hair and then when politics changed, (particularly with Louis XV moving away from the wigs and Louis XVI being the end of French Monarchy) that our gender presentation is not some fixed thing. 

There's all this talk about 'sex is real' and so on, Sonia Sodha says that 'trans rights activism' is the idea to replace gender away from sex. That's absolutely not the case and that's absolutely a strawman argument. Hair, clothing they are all gender signifiers. I tend to find the 17th century interesting for ideas, I find the 18th century more interesting. 

Things like facial hair are very seasonal and generational, as are hair styles. To some degree we could say: who cares, why does it matter, just let people do what they want. But the thing is society is defined by penalising and implicit rules. Some are to the legal system itself and some are social sanctions. Its important to be upfront that social sanctions exist entirely in the space where we accept them but do not mention them by name. I feel that my hair is an important part of gender expression. I don't know what it says but it feels right. I don't especially care to think what it means. I feel as I explore myself more I will find more expression aspects of me I've hitherto felt closed to myself