You Can Teach Yourself to Shave

1. The first step of shaving your face is realizing that you are now the kind of man who needs to shave his face, and you have no clue how to go about that. You vaguely remember watching boys learn to shave alongside their fathers in sitcom bathrooms, miming and wiping the foam from their cheeks. Men like you don’t learn to shave that way. You learn later, from the internet, from other men like you.

(It is darkly funny when you read quotes from politicians who say that families should be in charge of their children's genders. Sometimes you fantasize about grilling one of those sweating tie-choked pigs on live TV, because you really want to know: who was supposed to help you figure it out? Which of your dead/drunk/dysfunctional family members was sitting on all the hot goss about HRT?)

2. You grab your shaving kit from the medicine cabinet. A gift from your partner when you started your transition; you still remember the way their eyes glimmered as you picked through the box, identifying each object from the videos you’d watched. There was the sandalwood scented shaving soap, there was the soft foaming brush in its stainless-steel cup, there was the safety razor with its intimidating orange box of replacement blades. It felt heavy in your hands, because it was real. 

(When you first began feeling the testosterone, you felt like throwing a party every time you had enough facial hair to merit a shave. You remember the thrill of seeing salt and pepper dust under your nose, the itch and bristle, the way you carefully examined it to make sure it was not a shadow.)

3. You use the soft brush to pick up a glob of the fancy-smelling soap, satisfyingly plopping it into the bespoke metal cup. You try to pour a small amount of hot water into it. You instantly fail, but enough soap and water remains in the overflowed bowl to beat into a foam. You work up a lather without watching your hands, a minor miracle given how clumsy it used to feel. 

(You announced the birth of your mustache to your partner with the pride of a newly minted father. They replied: “But you’ve always had a mustache. It just looks better now.” This remains one of the funniest jokes you’ve ever heard.)

4. You pick up the cup of lather and begin to frost your stubble. This requires you to study yourself closely, because one of the strangest parts of transition is that your face literally changes every day. You stroke your jaw, noting how heavy it feels, how the lines of your face are squaring up. The white-pink delicate skin of your cheek in sharp relief next to an outpost of bristles. The face in the mirror looks like yours more often than not these days, even when it’s covered in soap.

(Every time you shave, you make a choice about the cost of being who you are. Testosterone has deepened your voice and broadened your chest, but until the beard came in you still appeared female to the average cis person. You vividly remember the first time you got openly gawked at in a bathroom, and the way your bristly chin rustled against the collar of your jacket as you gave them an bored nod on your way out the door.)

5. Slowly, gently, you razor soft damp lines through the cloud of foam on your face. Back when you started shaving, it took you ages of careful labor, chipping your clean cheeks and lips out in tiny strokes. Now it only takes a few minutes because you shave twice a week. If you don’t, you look like the kind of dirtbag that tourists hit up for drugs at the beach, and you don't like to share your weed.

(You don't flip scary people off in the bathroom these days. You remember what happened to Nex, and you don't want to be accused of starting the confrontation that leaves you bloodied or dead.)

6. Once your cheeks and lips are clean, it’s time to turn your attention to your goatee. Without looking down, you trade the tools in your hand. The safety razor clinks into place on the sink, and the rechargeable clippers hum to life between your fingers. You buzz your chin carefully and slowly, keeping an eye out for any stragglers along the jawline your razor missed.

(But you don’t shave your goatee anymore, either. You know you might be hurt by one of those people one day, but you’ll be damned if you're going to hide from them. You worked hard for this beard, this jaw, this thick shouldered strut. Let them stare.)

7. The clippers leave just enough hair behind that the suggestion of your facial hair is at least verbalized, if not shouted from the mountaintops. You slap your cheeks with aftershave in a satisfyingly masculine way, ruffling your jaw full of peach fuzz affectionately, congratulating yourself on another week with a beard. 

(There are moments that hang in your future like a sword above your head, threats dangling from thin threads. The moments when the shape of your body will have the final say, no matter how articulate you are about the gender you have constructed for yourself. Tension on public transit, or arguments at the doctor’s office. Double-takes, slurs on the street, people who pull their children closer when you walk by. The hassle of an updated ID and credit cards, the endless fees and paperwork required to stake your claim on your gender. Fifty-two dull needle pokes into your torso every year, the monotonous thrill of the world’s slowest tattoo. 

Your flesh is always at war with the world around it, and that just makes you love your new body even more. The world wants you dead. Let the world try. If you can teach yourself to shave, what can’t you do?)