As a kid, I was always excited to see people doing things I thought were different based on my limited experience with other humans. I remember the first man I saw in person with long hair, I was maybe 3-years-old, and I was so excited about it that I asked my mom why he had long hair because I had not previously known it was physically possible for a man to have long hair. But, the first girl I ever saw with short hair worked at Books-a-million and I knew her before she cut her hair. She had a traditionally masculine nickname, and she was incredibly nice. When I saw her for the first time with short I was so mesmerized by it that I stared directly up at it for the entire time my dad was getting checked out. She had it spiked because that was a big thing then, and it also made it look funner. Before we left she bent down and said, "I know you wanna touch my hair, go for it!" I did, and I grinned and laughed, and she grinned and laughed at me grinning and laughing. This was a big deal to me. It was one of the best interactions I ever had with an adult as a kid. I consider it one of the most positive transformative moments of my childhood. It was an actual adult engaging with me over a possibility I had not considered, even though it was as simple as a haircut. I think I would have been a much sadder little queer kid without her haircut.

I'm no longer an inexperienced child that genders haircuts, hair lengths are all normalized for me now. But what I think about "all that" is that a person cutting their hair because they want to, or growing it out because they want to, and sharing a little positive part of their identity that you may not be able to see or know otherwise, is good for everyone. I'm glad it happens, and it churns my stomach a little when I see people trying to discourage someone from something like that.