Ask Hannah!

I love my big long beard. Santa would be jealous of it. I have had this beard for over 20 years. Plus I love to crossdress. That comes to the problem I’m about to ask.

How can I pull off crossdressing and big fluffy beard at the same time, without looking like a fool? I want my two favorite things to blend together: The beard and crossdressing.

Even after 20 years, there’s no beard in the world that can stop you from crossdressing.  I believe that crossdressing is simply wearing clothes that are typically associated with the opposite gender, if we look at gender as binary (i.e. the short-sighted thinking that gender is classified as either male or female).  Put on a pair of panties, eyeliner, or a wedding dress, and beard or no beard, you are crossdressing.

But I understand what you are asking.  We all have features that we feel contradict with feeling and looking femme.  We all have days where we just don’t feel pretty.  Crossdressing is easy.  It’s super easy.  When I was 18 I had to gather up the courage to go into Target to duck in and out of the lingerie section and pick out a pair of panties and bra that I hoped to God would fit.  I also prayed that no one would see me.  These days a couple clicks is all it takes to find beautiful lingerie.

When it comes to this side of us, we need to think of this as what we want to accomplish.  If you ask me how to crossdress, I’ll tell you to slip on a cute pair of panties and you are crossdressing.  Ta-da!  But that is not helpful.  Instead, we need to think of our goals.

If we look at crossdressing as simply wearing clothes that are typically thought of as “girl clothes” a beard is not going to stop you from crossdressing.  But if you are wondering how to make a beard work with a wig, full makeup, a cute dress, and heels, well, that’s a different story.  Facial hair is one of the most masculine features that someone can have.  That’s not to say that only men have facial hair, many cis-women do.  But let’s be honest, there probably is not a lot of women who have a beard as fabulous as yours.

Many of us have features that we don’t want to change (your beard, for example) or unable to (my giant hands and height and shoulders and….I could go on) that we feel work against us when we are en femme.  If we can’t change, or we don’t want to change something about us, then we need to embrace it.  I can’t do anything about how tall I am, so I embrace it, and I rock my height.  I used to think I should only wear flats to help myself blend in a little, but I could be barefoot and still be super tall.  So, I embrace it and choose to wear four inch stilettos.  If I am going to be tall, I am going to be REALLY tall.

If you want to keep your beard, then rock that beard.  You can’t hide it, so show it off, girl.

Love, Hannah