Brave New World
When, in the winter of 98 (I was on a skiing holiday with a lesbian named Crayons) this editor was quizzed on the subject of transgender beardery, this editor is ashamed to say that he scoffed at the idea. “Show me a woman, or a 60-40 hermaphrodite for that matter, with a fully seeded beard or moustache and I’ll show you a man in a dress.” He said, before it was pointed out that some women do carry an amount of upper lip fluff; “But does it bristle?!” He boomed, scaring a nearby vole into river, “Does it resist a stiff breeze, harbour crumbs and seem to growl at the touch?!” The enquirer had to admit that it did not. This editor now reproaches himself for such defensiveness. He has now known several women and no longer fears them or any possible attempts to usurp the theatre of beardery from menfolk such as they might make. In short, and by means of an overdue apology, PMB welcomes its first transgender beard, modelled here by Emily, “The truncheon” McNulty. PMB regards this a significant moment in beardery and Emily, not Pankhurst, had this to say, “Finally some recognition you utter shits.” And later this, (gruff voice, perhaps that of a Northumberland butcher) “Dodgems, dodgems! One pound a quarter hour!” The Truncheon's comments elucidate the duplicitous nature of both sexuality and the beard, and by calling into question her sanity, that of personality itself.
Could there be a more fitting epitaph to single sex beardery?
Drawing this historic round of Pimp my Beard to a close, we humbly ask that when beards and breasts hit the front covers of the tawdry fashion and "celeb" magazines, you remember that you saw them here first, as we welcomed you, to a Brave New World.
