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Transgender Author for the Guardian newspapers hair loss struggle

bullitnut

bullitnut

4 awesome repairs with SMG
Read this in the Guardian newspaper, my own opinion differs from the authors as i personally think a transplant with a world class surgeon would be the better option but each to their own. Don't know anything about the author other than she works for the Guardian, but i found it interesting and it's something i had never thought of before in terms of the whole hair loss spectrum. Hair loss is bad enough for us guys but for trans people who want to change their appearance to match their true gender it must be a nightmare.
Interesting read.
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My transgender diary: 'After two hair transplants, I still need to buy a wig'

Author David Thomas still lives as a man, but has begun the male-to-female gender transition that will eventually result in becoming a woman. This week, he reveals his blonde ambition


I am the proud owner of a miraculous hair transplant. Two procedures in the past 18 months have covered a shiny bald crown with flowing locks that any late-middle-aged man could be proud of.

Which would be perfect if only I could keep living as a man. But I can’t and so I’m stuck with the problem (among many others) that my hair is insufficient for female purposes.

I need to bridge the gap between what I have and what I want. In the spirit of due diligence, I returned to my transplant surgeon, Michael May of the Wimpole, to see whether another would do the trick.

Mr May thought he could help. He proposed taking 1,600 more hairs, one at a time, from the back of my scalp, just above my neck. They would then be repositioned to fill in the remaining gaps on my crown. He also suggested that by tattooing the skin behind my hairline, thereby making it much darker and non-reflective, I could create the effect of thicker hair.

This approach would offer a one-time-only, permanent solution. And all my hair would be my own, which is something I would love to be able to achieve.
But as Mr May admitted, there are drawbacks, too. The harvesting of my hair would not require any significant surgery. But a sizeable area would have to be shaved and would then have to grow back from scratch.

And there’s still the basic mathematical problem that the overall number of hairs would not increase. May would simply be spreading the same number over a greater area, thereby creating a lower overall density. I pondered these pros and cons and went back to a man I’ve written about before. Chris Hinchliffe is a director of the Lucinda Ellery studios, whose speciality is restoring female hair loss. Ms Ellery is, in fact, Chris’s mum and actually appeared halfway through our meeting, full of bubbly, blonde enthusiasm and best wishes.
Meanwhile, Chris and I debated the pros and cons of simply getting a wig, or going for one of the ‘intralace’ fittings in which his company specialises. These are strips of mesh, with real, human ‘Indian Temple’ hair attached. The intralace, which is three or four inches wide and seven or eight long, would be placed atop my head, and my own hair would be pulled through the mesh to merge, indistinguishably, with the hair I was buying.

‘You have to ask yourself, “Do I want part-time hair, or full-time hair?”’ Chris said. ‘Ours is a 24/7 solution. You can brush it, wash it, sleep in it and scratch your head. But it’s susceptible to wear and tear in a way that a wig is not. You take a wig off before you go to bed at night. Basically it’s a hair hat.’ Ugh! I definitely don’t want a hair hat.
I want as real as I can get, with as much of my own hair as possible. But that’s expensive. A basic Lucinda Ellery hairpiece costs around £2,000, and it has to be adjusted and restyled every two months at a further cost of up to £150 a pop.
‘Welcome to the club,’ said a female of mine. ‘I spend that much at my hairdresser.’ Good point, and there’s no question that an intralace would provide the best aesthetic effect. So I’m going for it, and if I have to sell a kidney to pay the bill, too bad.
 
Bigmac

Bigmac

Administrator
Staff member
Interesting read. I have seen a lot of female and transgender male to female having forehead reduction surgery. This must be a real battle for her, hopefully, she can find some middle ground that makes her happy.
 
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