"When Pooya Mohseni was 19 years old, she was walking around a park in her hometown of Tehran, Iran, wearing a simple black T-shirt and white jeans, when a group of policemen approached her.
The officers took issue with how Mohseni, a transgender woman who was presenting as masculine at the time, wore her hair. To them, it was too long.
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| Pooya Mohseni |
"My hair was down to the middle of my ears," Mohseni, now 41, tells Refinery29. "Not very long at all. If I pulled it all to the front of my face, it would come down to the middle of my nose."
According to Mohseni, the officers' real problem wasn't her hair. It was what her hair signified. Almost two decades later, that very same head of hair is making its debut in a new Pantene campaign called "Don’t Hate Me Because I’m #BeautifuLGBTQ," which was born out of the brand's new partnership with GLAAD in honor of Pride Month. In a video for the campaign that can be seen on both YouTube and social media, Mohseni recounts her arrest and declares that "hair is the most visibly transformative part of your body."
I agree and still feel so fortunate I was able to grow my own hair. It forced me into going all out to adopt a stable feminine persona. The drawback of course is making sure I keep up with it at my stylist!
