#Alopecias

[great-and-small]

Im a bit obsessed with these images from Hope For Wildlife rescue of a wild mammal with alopecia.

Can you tell what critter this is?

[soulren]

Go spend some time on male pattern baldness or male(AMAB) balding forums/subreddits and such. I did after realizing it is happening to me and the ammount of people who truly don't realize how BRUTALLY it tanks people's confidence and mental health is insane.

There's no cure to baldness by the way, and it can start at any time and there's no way to predict how fast or slow it will go. The only real working option is a daily pill that usually just halts it, but it can stop working or just slow it down or cause major side effects. To regrow you have to use a daily topical solution, or use a roller to wound your scalp. None of these are surefire by the way, and if you stop them you'll just lose your hair and whatever you regained. It's a daily involved thing that might not work and often at best just retains. The best drug, the one that occasionaly gives regrowth, also causes shedding at the start, and can have side effects from growing breasts to brain fog to EDsyfunction(sorry, censoring cause tumblr). Now, those are INCREDIBLY rare and almost never happen but it weighs heavily on the mind of those already spiraling.

But that's just background. What I'm here to talk about is the pure woe you'll see on those forums. People speak as though their lives are over, as though they've lost every chance of finding a woman(predominantly, there's a running idea in such places that women don't like bald men or like them less) or doing anything. You can read countless stories of people who describe that they no longer go outside, are now filled with anxiety and self-hate, have gone from extroverted to never showing their face. And some of these people are kids who lost their hair in high school or even before, or are holding as best they can to a very receded hairline and feel like there is nothing they can do.

And then there's something touched upon far less in those communities, but is important to bring up here; baldness and masculinity. There's the horror of knowing so much of society sees a bald guy as a very masculine guy, at seeing that the best advice for being hot and bald is "grow and beard and big muscles bro". Imagine now you're AMAB balding and nonbinary, or a trans woman who doesn't want to be on hormones.

Just genuinely take the time to look at those forums no matter who you are. Understand what these people go through, what I am currently going through. It is soul-crushing, spiraling, brutal. I have the dream of one day being like Brennan Lee Mulligan or Matt Mercer and starting to lose my hair made me feel like I could never. I felt like and still feel like I would have to be masculine, have to be a bro-y dude, have to look older than I was(I'm fuckin 22). It was the feeling that I could never dress feminine again, never present as a woman when I wanted to again, that I'd always be viewed as a bald guy before anything else.

This is an incredibly vulnerable post for me, and I hope it reaches you all as well in a kind and understanding mood. There's a tendency online for people to joke about baldness, to make fun of it, to treat it as a playfull silly thing but it fucking ruins lives, and it shouldn't. It happens to half the population's sort of bodies and very often. It should just be a neutral thing. You don't need long hair to be feminine, you don't need hair to be feminine. You don't need hair for anything. I guess I'm just saying in general that everyone should be kinder about balding, more understanding, and view it with as much import as they'd view the pixels between this sentence and the next. None at all, I mean.

And for those like me, very feminine guys who wanna keep that and don't want a beard and are terrified of balding, here's some names and I do hope others that see this will add more; Mr. Bruce (also in The Correspondents(band) Alex Ward in LA By Night Jason Carl in LA By Night Cecil Baldwin of Welcome To Night Vale Bob The Drag Queen RuPaul(in looks alone, I know about the whole fracking stuff but this post is about looks) tananasho on instagram Also your mannerisms and style of dress will convey femininity far more than your hair. Yea sure a front-on neutral shot of you may not and maybe you need makeup and stuff, and hell maybe a lot of people might reject you more but it'll just filter down to the people for you.

And to all you artists and writers and creatives; make more bald characters. Try it out. Feminine ones, masculine ones, all sorts. None of the copout nonhuman sort, just dudes and girls and mates and individuals who are all sorts of things and also bald. It might make a few of the people going through the various vortexes of pain that balding causes feel a bit better.

And to those noticing I did not adress female hair loss much here, that was intentional. I am AMAB and currently a nonbinary guy who goes by any pronouns but often likes to present as fem. I learned I was possibly losing my hair and lost two months of my life, no work or going or anything, to male hair loss forums and research and spiraling. Checking my hair twenty times a day, unable to sleep, unable to eat, unable to think. And my situation was NOT unique, but it also did not give me any experience or understanding of female hair loss and what AFAB people may go through with that, so I don't feel knowledgeable enough to speak on it. Also living with baldness WILL get easier and you will find something that works for it, by virtue of simply living with it. Things get easier with time.

[raemeh]

With all the love we give our hairy folks can we give the same love to our non hairy folk as well

Not in a “love the people who fit the societal norm” way just a “love the people who are losing hair.” Way

love the people who are balding

love the people who are bald

love the people who are loosing hair due to aging

love the people who are loosing hair due to medical reasons

love the people who can’t grow hair.

love the people who stop growing hair.

Should body hair be normalized? Yes of course. Body hair is a “normal” part of being human. But not all humans are “normal”. Recognize that there are disabled people who don’t have body hair or maybe any hair. Look at them and appreciate them. Love them just the same.

[gayaest]

Rawiya chibi 🪺🪷🍈🧸📚

[kaison07]

leave the baldie baddie alone!

[ilovethecolorpink]

i cannot fucking stop laughing

[baldlover04]

[cabiba]

beautiful bald Dutch woman with alopecia tells us she shaves her head

[monsterhighlovurr]

Unpopular opinion-Pickles is balding because of his white boy dreads not because of hrt

[tortiefrancis]

Happy disability pride month! I decided to draw some disabled Barbies, most, if not all, from the fashionista line!

note: I'm not fluent in Brazilian Sign Language, please let me know if I messed this up in any way!!

[ ID: a digital, stylized drawing of five women sitting around a brown table and talking to each other. The background is transparent, and there's some shading. The women are, from left to right:

A woman a wheelchair and has dark skin, black eyes and long, coily, black hair, and wears pink heart glasses and a short, sleek, rainbow striped dress. Then, a woman with Down Syndrome with tanned skin, hazel eyes and long, wavy, blonde hair, and wears a white dress puffy sleeves, pink, yellow and purple flowers, a pink necklace and pink orthopedic shoes. They both smile.

Then, a Deaf woman with pale skin, green eyes and long, straight, red-ish brown hair in a high ponytail, and wears hot pink hearing aids, a short, black dress with a white collar and hot pink, white and purple flowers and dark hot pink shoes. She does the sign for bus in Brazilian Sign Language, her two hands close to her chest, curved inwards, then going forward, breaking apart, like a bus door opening.

Next to her is a woman with vitiligo with dark skin, dark brown eyes and long, dark brown, coily hair in a large bun, wearing a long, pink, yellow and white striped dress and white shoes. Finally, a woman with alopecia with medium tone skin, brown eyes and no hair, wearing a hot pink dress with puffy sleeves and purple flowers, golden hoop earrings and white shoes. They both have neutral expressions. /End id ]

[disabled-models]

Janessa St. Pierre, model with alopecia, photographed by Miguel Morteo

[gayaest]

Chibis of my original characters! 🌈🩷

[datchscursedblog]

Mr. Alopecia now on Maris mad super update.

Game boy and jack-o-luigi (crispy luigi) are here too

Also meet bootleg Mario plush, say hi to him

[seawaterisverysaltywoah]

class boredom

[baldlover04]