I've been thinking more and more about Luna Younger's hair getting cut—it's been the focus of a lot of horrified reactions by trans women to the story, and for good reason. Many of us were never allowed to grow long hair (I wasn't) when we were younger, or were shamed for it. 1/n

And hair tends to be a strong outward signifier of gender. Plenty of cis folks could tell you they've been misgendered because their hair is of the "wrong" length. As a result, this means trans women probably tend to view their hair as heavily important, and very fragile. 2/n

Head shaving as discipline has a long history, and probably the image of the shorn scalp, for many, brings to mind images of internment and/or militarization. To have one's head shaved in this manner is to become disciplined, and then to become an instrument of discipline. 3/n

I'd also imagine that for many the shaved head is essentially a phallic symbol, the scalp coming to resemble the surface of the scrotum (surely this is a common schoolyard insult?), and the masculinizing effect of shaving gesturing to the unseen penis. 4/n

For trans girls, forced head shaving is thus an act of metaphorically rendering the genitals permanently visible, a scarlet letter meant to gesture to an ideology of a naturalized gender binary. It is to say, "this can't be a girl; look at his penis!" 5/n

But the weird thing is, for all the physical and metaphorical violence that head shaving entails, it's also an act fully predicated on social constructions. Not every culture in the world views long hair as feminine. Sometimes the shorn scalp is eminently beautiful. 6/n

There are cultures that view long hair as traditionally masculine and short hair as traditionally feminine. This is pretty easily proven. To forcibly shave a trans girl's head is thus a pretty bizarre act, when you break it down. 7/n

The impetus is predicated on an idea that boys and girls exist in a natural, biological dichotomy. To shave the head is an attempt to reveal that boy that was there all along, that will always be there, in the mind of transphobes. 8/n

And yet the very acknowledgement that head shaving CAN be so violent is also to acknowledge the power of social constructs. That is, if transphobes truly believe that having long hair can't make you into a woman, why do they bother to shave it? 9/n

This is where the fascist impulse behind transphobia is revealed. It's an act of doublespeak that simultaneously posits that gender is inherent and immutable, while also acting on a facet of gender that is highly mutable and easily revealed as constructed. 10/n

Let's be clear here; if Luna Younger says she's a girl then she is a girl no matter what her hair looks like, what she has to wear, what name her father calls her, so on and so on. Head shaving is a wildly violent and destructive act. Fuck her father. 11/n

But isn't it just so interesting that THESE are the things transphobes choose to act on, even as they attempt to efface the power such outward signifiers have in the first place? Why not be a man with long hair? they ask us, even as they tell us that no man has long hair. 12/n

Transphobia is irrational, it's hateful, it's violent. It has no logical core to it other than an attempt to rationalize an irrational disgust. But transphobia also has a history, it has discernible contours and ideas. Let's interrogate those things. 13/13

Addendum: this thread is in no way positing that a shaved head actually is or looks masculine. I know plenty of women with short or no hair and they certainly don't look "like men." I'm just saying this is the transphobic logic behind the act.