bald and genderless

ley david elliette cray


Photos: Diana Urbina (@thenuisance)
Make-up: Natalie Cochran (@natgeode)

A film photo of a white child with shoulder length brown hair holding Ley as a bald white baby who is wearing a red long sleeve onesie and is either laughing, screaming, or crying.

A film photo of a white child with shoulder length brown hair holding Ley as a bald white baby who is wearing a red long sleeve onesie and is either laughing, screaming, or crying.

I was born bald and genderless. 
And here I am again. 

Maybe not genderless—that’s hard to say. I’d need some idea of what gender is to assert that with any confidence, and whatever previous idea I had has slowly eroded alongside years of thinking about and studying the topic. What I can say with confidence is that, on any common understanding, the gender I was assigned at birth sure wasn’t right. And I can say that my intuitive and preferred way of moving through the world is best described in what amounts to a flurry of contradictory ways, with the only common theme among them being something involving the word ‘femme’. 

So am I a non-binary transfemme? Sure am.

Ley as a young child in a portrait against a mottled backdrop. Ley is smiling showing off two front teeth, light brown cropped hair with bangs, And is wearing a striped longsleeve shirt well clutching a large brontosaurus toy.

Ley as a young child in a portrait against a mottled backdrop. Ley is smiling showing off two front teeth, light brown cropped hair with bangs, And is wearing a striped longsleeve shirt well clutching a large brontosaurus toy.

Let’s talk fashion. I’ve had a mullet. A bowl cut. Ill-advised spikes with entirely too much hair gel. Every color of the rainbow. It was a persistent identity crisis, even before nature started her cruel trick of slowly but surely taking my hair away. Was it a coincidence that the hair was disappearing right alongside my thinning and receding masculine self-conception? 

I don’t know, but holding on to both was starting to feel embarrassing, an increasingly public sign of that awkward last-grasp clinging to something that everyone but me could see just wasn’t working anymore. “Just shave it all off,” some friends said. Then they said it again, and again. I resisted until I couldn’t anymore.

So I shaved it all off. The hair and the masculine self-conception. Now, here I am, bald and genderless—or bald and whatever you want to call this way of being and moving through the world. With both reset to a blank slate, free movement forward was possible. I knew in some way then that my expression would eventually settle into the femme side of things, but the hair—or lack thereof—left me with a puzzle: how do I feminize this head?

Wigs? Wigs weren’t right. Some people pull them off fantastically, but I’m not any of those people. When I try on a long, flowy wig of even the highest quality, I might as well be sporting a toupee—I just see myself as a person looking like they’re trying to look like a person who has hair. And I can’t move confidently if I feel like I look like a person trying to look like someone who isn’t them.

Ley as they are now, a nonbinary transfemme person standing in front of windows by a yellow bed with a white cat sprawled out on the bed. They are wearing a black long sleeve dress that has a long skirt with a grey wrapped and scrunched ¾ sleeve on top. They are wearing glasses and a black scarf on their head with the tail of the scarf coming around to the front of their body. They are looking down lovingly at the cat on the bed.

Ley as they are now, a nonbinary transfemme person standing in front of windows by a yellow bed with a white cat sprawled out on the bed. They are wearing a black long sleeve dress that has a long skirt with a grey wrapped and scrunched ¾ sleeve on top. They are wearing glasses and a black scarf on their head with the tail of the scarf coming around to the front of their body. They are looking down lovingly at the cat on the bed.

Drugs? Creams? Meh, I’m unconvinced. Plugs? I don’t even know what those are, but they sound scary, invasive, and probably expensive. And either way, gender dysphoria sucks and it sucks immediately, so whatever fix I ended up with, I wanted it quickly.

Then, behold, the solution: stay bald. Embrace it. Bald femmes are gorgeous. And hell yeah, I could become one of those gorgeous bald femmes. I would become one of those gorgeous bald femmes.

The story, of course, continues. Another cruel trick of nature is that self-conception isn’t quite the same as public perception, much less reception. Testosterone-driven puberty left me with a face conventionally coded as man: the brow, the nose, the chin, the jawline. All the respect in the world to any who go the facial feminization surgery route; it scares me near to death.

Here’s an understatement: being misgendered is annoying. Not annoying in the sense that some cis people might think: “oh, they didn’t use the particular word I want, that’s annoying.” Nope. It’s annoying in the sense that every time I get called ‘he’ or ‘sir’ or ‘man’ or whatever, it just reinforces the impression that there is no room for me or my self-conception in the world. That the way I move through the world is wrong.

Ley standing in front of some out on their walls well wearing a pink button down shirt with a black blazer, belt and skirt. They are bald and have black gauges and a lip ring and septum ring. They are wearing clear glasses and looking up off into the distance while smizing.

Ley standing in front of some out on their walls well wearing a pink button down shirt with a black blazer, belt and skirt. They are bald and have black gauges and a lip ring and septum ring. They are wearing clear glasses and looking up off into the distance while smizing.

Of course, I know that’s nonsense, but like I said earlier: gender dysphoria sucks, and sometimes it makes you believe—deeply believe—things you otherwise know to be total garbage. Given my collection of male-coded facial features along with the annoying cultural norm of masculinizing baldness, then, I was left with a sequel to my previous puzzle: how the hell do I femme up my smooth, shiny dome?

Makeup, right? A dark lash, some contouring, a little lip liner? In the hands of an expert, the problem is solved. In my case, that all helps, but it’s sure not enough. Even with regular practice (which is a very, very exaggerated way of describing my present routine), I’m still coming off a no-idea-how-to-do-make-up streak that lasted over three long decades.

a portrait of Ley caught through a window with plants. Where is wearing a Black scoop neck Long sleeve top that shows off there chest tattoos, Necklace and dangly earrings. They are wearing black cat I glasses and red lipstick along with a Black Head scarf that has some red and gray detailing that is then braided and the braid comes around to the front of their body.

a portrait of Ley caught through a window with plants. Where is wearing a Black scoop neck Long sleeve top that shows off there chest tattoos, Necklace and dangly earrings. They are wearing black cat I glasses and red lipstick along with a Black Head scarf that has some red and gray detailing that is then braided and the braid comes around to the front of their body.

You know what I could do, though, with minimal or even no practice? Get myself a few pairs of thick, cat-eye glasses. A whole array of dangly earrings. And my favorite: the head wraps. Now, I’ve got to be careful there: a lot of headwrap styles aren’t open to me, and I’m not the sort of person to stomp all over group identity and just help myself to a culturally significant adornment tradition just because it makes my head feel pretty. 

So I tend to stick with two styles: I let it flow, or I twist it up. Either way give the long, flowy look of hair without getting into tricky toupee territory. The wraps aren’t hair, they don’t look like hair, and—most importantly to me—they don’t look like I think they look like hair. But they’re still something I can style, swing, and swish: a hair alternative, just like my dandelion “herbal beverage” that isn’t coffee, isn’t trying to be coffee, and yet still serves as a nice coffee alternative. 

(That is almost certainly the most controversial statement in this whole article, but whatever. Fight me.)

I’m lucky enough that I have a bestie who happens to be a tattoo artist (love, hugs, and shoutouts to Kasha—check them out on Instagram at @foragertattoo). We’ve done lots of gender-affirming work together, all over the body. Above the shoulders, we’ve got the little white heart by the left eye, the minimal grey and pink dots by the right, the pink carnation behind the ear and the oh-so-subtle white-ink florals and butterfly across the throat. All of them serve to soften the look. (If you don’t believe me that the neck tattoo is there, just zoom in. Subtle.)

Ley wearing the same outfit as in the third image, They are standing near a doorway next to a window and a plant with a dresser in the background that has a Salt lamp on top of it. Through the doorway there is an orange couch with a black and white pup laying on it.  Ley is touching the end of the tail of the head scarf and looking into the camera while smizing.

Ley wearing the same outfit as in the third image, They are standing near a doorway next to a window and a plant with a dresser in the background that has a Salt lamp on top of it. Through the doorway there is an orange couch with a black and white pup laying on it.  Ley is touching the end of the tail of the head scarf and looking into the camera while smizing.

And the nice thing is that it’s hard for someone to fault you for having head, neck, and face tattoos when they’re so dainty, light, and pretty. Of course, some still will find fault, but they’ll sound silly as hell doing it. (Now, I’m not saying you should just go get face tattoos even if doing so is going to cost you your job—but for those of us who want to and can do it without retaliation, maybe, just maybe, we should? Visibility leads to normalization, after all, and normalization leads to an expansion of the circle of people who can feel free to ink their head, neck, and face without running into punitive nonsense.)

a view from through a double doorway to the yellow bed with Ley sitting with one leg crossed in the center and their white and black pup smooshed next to them.

a view from through a double doorway to the yellow bed with Ley sitting with one leg crossed in the center and their white and black pup smooshed next to them.

Ley in the same outfit as the fourth photo with the pink button down and blazer, this time a full body shot showing that the skirt is ankle length, They have one hand on their hip and they are looking off-camera. They're standing in front of a white brick faux fireplace that has books stacked where a fire would be made.

Ley in the same outfit as the fourth photo with the pink button down and blazer, this time a full body shot showing that the skirt is ankle length, They have one hand on their hip and they are looking off-camera. They're standing in front of a white brick faux fireplace that has books stacked where a fire would be made.

I don’t like to leave any doubts, so the rest of the outfit matters. Feminizing my otherwise insistently masculine-coded head takes some work below the shoulders, too. Why stop the flow, swing, and swish at just the wrap? 

Rock the skirt. Play with the waistline. Shoes, shoes, shoes. And my favorite: when I skip the headwrap, I throw on the “men’s” blazer and mandarin-collar button-up to go with the skirt and heels. Just enough masculine-coded attire mixed in contrast with the femme foundation to show that the latter is neither accident nor an attempt to present myself as anything other than what I am. 

It’s a way of saying: this is femme. This is femme. Maybe not your femme—my femme.

So, forget hair, and forget the culture of masculine-coded baldness. Here I am. Bald, genderless, and unabashedly femme. It doesn’t matter much to me if some folks don’t get it, or if some folks don’t like it. I love every single day of it.

vol. 01 summer 2021

vol. 01
summer 2021

Ley close up headshot in front of a blue background with white speckles reminiscent of a starry sky. They are wearing their bald head, clear glasses, and a black shirt that has a scooped neckline to show their tattoos.

Ley close up headshot in front of a blue background with white speckles reminiscent of a starry sky. They are wearing their bald head, clear glasses, and a black shirt that has a scooped neckline to show their tattoos.

about the artist

Ley David Elliette Cray, Ph.D. (they/she) is a non-binary transfemme in Fort Worth, Texas. They’re a philosophy professor and consultant who writes about philosophical aesthetics; teaches yoga and meditation for trans, non-binary, and gender-nonconforming persons; and works with adolescents and young adults through a virtual intensive outpatient program. Ley watches horror movies, reads comics, and plays videogames with their dogs and cats. Sometimes they play in a one-person punk band. Check out their other work at wesleycray.com and keep up with them on Instagram: @leydavidelliette.