The Bearded Lady Is Pregnant Now

On freak shows and the soft bigotry of trans expectations

That is not an actual beard. There is barely peach fuzz on that jawline. Call it a metaphorical beard, because this is not even the P.T. Barnum bearded lady beard. This is a self-harming woman. Her jagged mastectomy scars speak to her dysphoria, which is somehow not triggered by pregnancy, only pronouns.

We musn’t speak of her as anything but him, otherwise “he” might die. I have cropped the image of Logan Brown above not just to conceal the disturbing sight of those surgicalized-self-harm scars, but to make a point about the limits of what we are supposed to see.