I was sitting in the waiting room of the local laser clinic, counting the minutes until I was ushered in for what would be my eighth session. This should have been an experience of affirmation and tangible progression towards physical congruity to my truest self but instead was fraught with anxiety — the treatments weren’t working. After such a great deal of time, my follicles were still as strong as ever and but a few small patches had responded to treatment. I had been on HRT (hormone replacement therapy) for some time until I had no choice but to halt my journey when some side effects had proven too much a risk to both my physical and mental wellbeing to continue. (An aside, but I plead that anyone who chooses the path of HRT to please do so with a doctor who understands the nuances and complexities of this therapy.) The laser seemed like my last hope. My heart was sinking, each string plucked again and again in cacophonous fury. It felt as if every time I’d tried to take a step towards physically confirming my gender identity I was met with failure and a deepened sense of dysphoria. Disheartened and genuinely afraid that I would never in my life reach a rigid ideal of femininity I’d constructed in my mind, I continued to spiral until I finally came to a question: why?

Why did I feel that if I didn’t reflect the twisted expectations of a patriarchally defined femininity I’d set for myself that I was not worthy of being called a woman? That somehow the secondary sex characteristics of my assigned gender at birth invalidated that claim. I came out to the world on a billboard yet even then some of those closest to my heart still refused to acknowledge my identity or call me a name any other than one that was long gone. It seemed in my mind that when the hormone therapy failed, the lasers followed suit and so too my body itself as being anything other than a strange vessel with which I could find little in common. At some point within this maelstrom I’d allowed the virulence of merciless self-judgment to nefariously weave itself into my psyche and take an unrelenting hold. I would never dream of judging another by these standards, but there I was, staring into the mirror and seeing nothing but defeat. It was ridiculous and I knew better. Greater than my fear of this perceived failure was the fear of allowing my validity as a trans femme to be questioned in the name of archetypes born of a social system corrupted by centuries of toxic patriarchy. It was an affront to everything I believed in — to my very queerness at its core.

So, I put the razor down and with it the absurd notion that I would be lesser in any way as a result. It was uncomfortable and alien in the beginning, but I needed to work my way through this state of cognitive dissonance and unlearn the behaviors that I allowed to influence my thinking so powerfully. It was time to dispose of the foolish idea that I must be sanitized of any modicum of what could be perceived as masculine in order to “qualify” as my internal gender identity. There were days I could barely stand it — even insulated by layers of privilege it ached, but I had to remember that what I was fighting was not myself but a lifetime of cisheteronormative conditioning that had no place in my mind. When days were particularly difficult I looked to powerful, inspiring and unimaginably beautiful women like Harnaam Kaur who wear their beards with unapologetic assurance and pride to remind myself that the true domain of feminine beauty knows no bounds.

More time passed and with my beard grew a sense of confidence in my gender identity that I’d never truly had — a reconciliation of my own self-image and the person who I was, as I was, in that very moment. Through genuine self-love (albeit oftentimes of the tough variety) and compassion I began to reach a place where I could appreciate my physical form as it was in full without the compulsion to adhere to the archaic laws of the binary construct. Each day I would (and continue to) remind myself of the replaceable value in this journey, reciting affirmations of unbending self-worth and keeping track of every single moment in which I was filled with gratitude. I kept true friends close and reached out to them in times when my best efforts had faltered and my wings felt too heavy to fly. Most importantly I was honest with myself every single step of the way, trying my very best to be vigilant with compassion each time I began to allow thoughts of self-deprecation to creep back in. I cannot say with absolute certainty if the beard will stay or if it will go, but I know that regardless of choice I make going forward it will be made upon the premise of my own volition as an assertion of autonomy over my own form, no longer the sum of expectation and pressure. Not every day is easy nor ironclad in resolve but when I look into the mirror I no longer see a portrait of inadequacy but the strength of my identity and the incomprehensible beauty of the queerness I feel so tremendously lucky to call my own.

Related: 5 Trans and Non-Binary Creatives Shared What They REALLY Think About Beauty Standards