Women with beards: “It doesn’t matter if they call you ugly… The hardest thing is being told you’re a man”

They call themselves bearded women and some are no longer hiding their hair on their faces and have started sharing their experiences.

They are active in social networks and have even created groups to make themselves visible.

At BBC Mundo we spoke with two of them to understand how their process of accepting themselves with a beard has been and what their relationship has been with the explanations that medicine gives to their facial hair.

These are their stories:

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LUTA: My name is Luta Cruz. I was born in Chile, I am a woman, Afro, I compose songs, I sing and I am hairy.

very hairy

I get hairs even on my fingers.

I first became aware of my hair when I got sideburns. They started to grow quite large when I was about 11 years old.

My mom took me to a friend’s house to have me waxed.

I think he wanted to protect me because I was already, let’s say, weird: I was an Afro girl in Chile and now, in addition, I had hair on my face.

ANA: I am Anna Dino. I am a woman, illustrator and visual artist. I’m from Mexico and I have a beard.

At 13 years old I hadn’t noticed my beard, when a boy told me that he liked me, but that I had a lot of hair.

I didn’t pay much attention to the subject until in high school my hair started to show more and people started pointing fingers at me.

I felt the hairiest of all and decided to shave.

Every day I would remove my hair with tweezers as much as I could and then I would use a rake (razor blade), but as happens with men’s beards, there are some black dots that I pinched out.

Then I had to put ice because it was very swollen and on top of that I put makeup on.

LUTA: With my mom we thought of a more permanent solution. She raised money to give me laser hair removal.

For six months I underwent a treatment in which a tiny needle was inserted into each pore to burn the root and then the hair was pulled out with tweezers.

It was horrible.

I ended up with a very swollen, red face. It also gave me a lot of allergies.

In the end the laser reduced the volume a bit, but the hairs still appeared.

I tried the razor blade, but that didn’t work either. It irritated me and lasted very little without hair.

I had to resort to wax and tweezers.

Once a week I waxed my whole body and every other day my face.

ANA: When I went out with friends I had to carry a whole “survival” kit hidden: the lamp, the mirror, the tweezers, the wax, the makeup.

I didn’t tell anyone about my beard and waxing routine. I lived for many years with shame and seeking to hide it.

LUTA: I saw a doctor for the first time when I was 13 years old. He was a gynecologist, he diagnosed me with polycystic ovaries and explained that this caused excess hair.

He told me I had something called hirsutism and put me on birth control pills indefinitely.

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Hirsutism:

Hirsutism is a condition that primarily affects women and results in excessive growth of dark or coarse hair in a pattern similar to that of men, especially on the face, chest and back.

Hair development has several stages.

One of them is anagen, which is when rapid growth occurs and the hair acquires maturity and a darker tone.

“The prolongation of this phase is what we identify as hypertrichosis or hirsutism,” explains Dr. Viviana Felizzola, a specialist in Internal Medicine and Endocrinology.

Hirsutism can occur for different reasons.

“There are two main causes: the increased production of male hormones (androgens), such as testosterone, and the increased sensitivity of the skin to these androgens,” says Felizzola, who is also a member of the Colombian Association of Endocrinology.

“But there may also be associated metabolic problems and there is even hirsutism that is of unknown cause and occurs in almost 5% of cases,” adds the specialist.

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LUTA: For ten years I took birth control pills, but the hairs remained the same.

When I turned 25 I decided to find a permanent solution. She was tired.

One medical appointment led to another, until I arrived at an endocrinology consultation.

They did several tests and told me that the diagnosis of my 13 years did not coincide. She did not have polycystic ovaries.

I had taken pills that I didn’t need.

They thought, then, that he had Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH).

I remember thinking: my God, what is this? I’m going to die, he’s going to give me something… Why such a long name?

They did a lot of lab tests.

In the end they found me healthy.

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Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia:

It is a genetic disorder that affects the adrenal glands, a pair of walnut-sized organs located above the kidneys that produce hormones that help regulate metabolism, the immune system, blood pressure, and other essential functions.

Among the hormones they produce are androgens such as testosterone.

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ANA: When I turned 26 I went to a concert by Lxs Krudxs Cubensi, a Cuban hip hop group that Odaymara is a part of.

He has a beard like mine and at the concert he shared a poem. I think she ends by saying, “If being a woman is shaving your beard, then I’m not a woman. But if being a man is having a lot of beard, I’m not a man either.

I started crying in the middle of the concert. It was very strong for me.

Until that moment the only references he had were from the humiliation. The “exotic” women who had been part of circuses or were exhibited in museums.

But that day, for the first time, I saw an empowered woman in a public space.

I began to think that I might as well keep it.

LUTA: Leaving my hair was also an issue with my partners.

I had a boyfriend who worried that his friends might think I was trans or a transvestite.

He always avoided caresses on the face. She did not allow them for fear that they would feel the hairs.

This caused me to have a more withdrawn personality, less self-confidence, less self-esteem, less understanding of who I was as a woman.

I got tired and started telling the people close to me. It was like a first step to empower myself with this topic.

ANA: When the 2017 earthquake occurred in Mexico, I had not left the house for several days because I was editing a video. And I hadn’t shaved.

That day everything was chaos. Around my house many buildings were lost.

Seeing everything destroyed gave me perspective, I understood that I couldn’t live hiding anymore. I started growing my beard.

It was not easy at all, I myself was surprised to see myself.

Something that helped me a lot was painting it.

I was several years with the pink beard and that upset much more. They looked at me and it was like “ah! not only does he have a beard but he likes it”.

LUTA: When the pandemic hit and I had to be locked up, I decided to stop waxing my face. After all, I wasn’t going to see anyone.

A week later I had a beard, I had never seen it complete and it no longer bothered me.

I understood that by letting my hair down I had a better quality of life. I started to accept myself as a woman with this hairy body.

The definitive jump came when I recorded a video for social networks. I was really scared, but I did it anyway.

A lot of people saw it and they told me everything, from that I didn’t take care of myself and why I didn’t go to the doctor, to asking me if I was sick or trans.

There were also people who supported me.

I went through a lot of emotions. First I felt fear, then I felt sorrow, then anger. I didn’t understand why people thought so much.

Until I started to take it as something positive.

I thought that the people who opined didn’t know who I was. I thought they thought because bearded women are special.

Since then, I have shown that bearded women are not only hairy women, but that we are very brave because we have spent our whole lives listening to others give their opinion about our bodies, to doctors telling us that we are sick just because we are out of a standard.

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What does medicine offer?

One of the difficulties in treating excess hair is that it is associated with hormones that cannot be measured, such as dihydrotestosterone, and the androgenic sensitivity of the skin, which is also not measurable, explains Dr. Felizzola.

Women with hirsutism are often prescribed drugs that help lower the amount of androgens.

But it is not a definitive solution, since androgen sensitivity is so high in the skin that it is very difficult to counteract its effects.

Also, you have to consider the side effects that many medications have.

“Birth control pills, for example, can reduce libido,” says the expert.

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ANA: The really traumatic thing for me happened when at one point I started having uncontrollable vomiting.

I ended up in a very good public hospital, but when they saw me they immediately assumed that my beard was the disease and that the symptoms I was presenting had to do with it.

I was referred to endocrinology and underwent many tests, but they did not show anything conclusive. That’s when they misdiagnosed with CAH.

With the pandemic everything was worse.

My gastric condition worsened. She was very weak, almost malnourished, I thought she was going to die. Someone close decided to publish my case on social networks.

To my surprise, the publication aroused the solidarity of the people and among several people they donated the money so that they could treat me in a private hospital.

Finally, almost two years after they first saw me, I had an appointment with a gastroenterologist.

He diagnosed me with Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome, prescribed me a pill and I came back to life.

If the doctors who first saw me hadn’t obsessed over my beard, they surely would have diagnosed me in time.

I felt very discriminated against.

LUTA: I expected the bullying to stop when I was an adult, but it only increased.

It doesn’t matter if they call you ugly, it doesn’t matter if they tell you that you’re not attractive or whatever they can tell you.

The hardest thing is being told you’re a man.

It hurts that they come to tell you who you are, when you already know who you are.

It is difficult for them to come to question your gender.

In the times in which we live, everything is so mediatic, everything is so fast, that if one does not give a good answer they can end your life.

ANA: It is no coincidence that the women who are making their beards visible are women who are in the artistic field.

If you go to an office to work in a skirt you can’t have hairy legs. It is not written nor is it a law, but there is a social sanction.

With my beard I think I couldn’t be a lawyer or financier, I wouldn’t be allowed.

In the end, hair removal for women is not a choice, it is an obligation, and our bodies with hair are pathologized all the time.

LUTA: To 13-year-old girls who are starting to grow hair and beards, I would say that the most important thing is how you feel.

Hairs don’t go anywhere, so it’s best to understand that other people aren’t always going to understand who we bearded women, hairy women, are.

And that I feel that one of the small missions we can have is simply to make ourselves visible.

ANA: I would tell young women that what is wrong is society and not them. And if someone doesn’t like it, it’s that person’s problem.

The beard is not a disease. (I)