I finally cut my hair short

By the end of high school, we had this formal final exams to close the program (ujian sekolah in Bahasa Indonesia). At that period of time, an urge to cut my hair short had already occured. One night, I had a dream of looking at a mirror and seeing myself with a short hair. I knew that that dream occurred to respond my conflicting wish. It stopped as a wish because I was scared to imagine having it. I didn’t know how it would turn out because for the longest time, I had a long hair.

I remembered the dream visuals and knew that I loved it. It was not necessarily too short and it still touched half of my neck. My favourite part was how it peeked a little below my ear (I’m bad at describing it).

The next day, I told my classmate who had a very short hair, who I really admired for that and her name is Rohana, that I dreamt about it and wanted to have a short hair. I wish I can show her my hair now.

I have spent two birthdays being sad because of my gender dysphoria. Being unable to cut my hair is one of the reasons. I’m too scared to do it while knowing that it held a lot of meaning to me–an answer to my dysphoria and a personal act by donating it.

Thankfully, a weekend before my first departure to Bandung had me do it. It would kill me to start my undergraduate study offline with a long hair. I’m also grateful for my family who’s supportive of it since one of my biggest fear is their critiques and questonings. Though in the future, I’d realize that the biggest questions always come from my own family who’s worried about my gender expression. Other than that, I received nothing but good feedbacks. People are more respectful than what you think of and you tend to actually speak with the well-intentioned ones.

For Indonesians who’d like to donate their hair, I donated mine here for your reference: donasirambut.com