"This bullshit rule about ‘feminine’ hair applied doubly because of my dark skin”
Hair has always been a Big Deal™ to me and for me. It was a battle ground in my uber-conservative, Nigerian home growing up. And no kid in that house could escape it or opt out of it. Both my mother and father were very strict about how all of their kids were expected to keep up with their hair. They were aggressive gender (binary) essentialists. In their mind, masculine = boy = short hair. And feminine = girl = long hair.
My parents absolutely deplored the possibility of any of my brothers walking about with long hair. It was true. And they
