My name is Johnny B. Truant.
You might know me from stimulating enterprises such as The Badass Project or my own infamous blog, or maybe even the Copyblogger Weekly Wrap.
What you might not know is that I’m a woman.
This is not a joke or an angle or an analogy — I’m literally a woman.
This is my story.
Once upon a time, I found myself having to make some hard decisions.
Decisions like whether to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or to go all Elvis and have a peanut butter and banana sandwich. But even that simple choice — as is always the case with such choices — got me thinking.
Later in his career, Elvis had the giant sideburns. And what made him successful? Obviously, it was those giant sideburns. Sideburns so big they were like micro-beards.
With hair like that, you could command any kind of sandwich you wanted.
I know that sounds like an odd thing to think about — and an odd thing to introduce my coming-out post with — but you’ve got to understand that just about every major event in my life has revolved in some way around facial hair, and my own inability to grow it.
You know, since I’m a woman.
The Western beardocracy
Growing up in rural Quebec, scraping by on my father’s salary as a union Zamboni lubricator, it didn’t take me long to learn the ugly truth about the world.
See, my father had a testosterone deficiency that kept his face perpetually smooth of whiskers. And despite working all the overtime he could (including a scab gig harvesting bamboo during the 1981 Montreal wicker strike), he was always the lowest man on the totem pole.
While other men with grand beards supported their families in luxury, we were reduced to wearing Salvation Army Hammer pants and subsisting on grainy crêpes and old brie.
I learned fast: the necessary...
