Since the age of about eleven, Harnaam Kaur has never felt normal. Society’s pre-conceived notions of normality have led Kaur through a life of bullying, physical and mental abuse, and clinical depression. All because of one physical ‘abnormality’ – she has a beard.
Polycystic ovary syndrome is a common condition that affects one in five women in the UK. It can cause reduced fertility, weight gain, acne, and high levels of ‘male hormones’ in your body, which can lead to excessive facial hair.
Initially, Kaur did not notice that there was anything particularly different about her. It wasn’t until other students started to make fun of her that Kaur realised that she didn’t look exactly the same as everybody else. As a result of the ensuing bullying – which involved being shoved against lockers, beaten, and being called names – Kaur put herself through a tremendous amount of physical pain in an attempt to remove her beard. She describes how the way that the waxing bruised, burnt and stretched her skin, coupled with the emotional pain when she continued to be bullied at school regardless of her efforts, sent her on a downwards spiral that resulted in her thoughts of suicide.
But when she was 16, something within her changed. She realised that no matter what she did, no matter how much she changed, that still nobody accepted her – and so she decided, instead, to learn to accept herself. She describes how something clicked in her head, and she thought: “If the bullies are allowed to live and carry on the torment… why can’t I live?” This is when she began growing her beard out.
Now, Harnaam Kaur is a body-confidence and anti-bullying activist. She has a following of nearly 30,000 on her Facebook page, on which she shares her experiences, promotes self-love, and even does video tutorials on how she looks after her beard, as well as daily makeup routines. She used to dress like a man to hide her breasts – “if you can’t beat them, join them” – but Kaur has admitted that she is a girly girl. She loves makeup, floral clothing – she likes prominent eye line wings. She is not just a woman with a beard.
Learning to love and accept herself, however, has not stopped the abuse: “Unfortunately I still get bullied, unfortunately I still get body shamed”, she says, particularly since becoming a public figure and activist. But she justifies what she does by saying that “there are hundreds and thousands and millions of people who need to hear my words, see my work, and I do it for them.”
Kaur’s emotional journey has given her such strength that she cannot imagine removing her beard: “Why have I gone through all this turmoil, from being bullied, suicidal, self-harming, hating the way I look and now accepting who I am … to then go back and remove her… I’m happy with her… through her I’ve got the strength to be who I am. And it’s so weird because she’s just a beard.”
Kaur is not just a ‘woman with a beard’ – she is a role model for millions of people who don’t feel comfortable in their own skin. Self-love is one of the most difficult things to achieve, but Kaur has made it her mission to try and help as many people as possible find it. As Kaur expresses herself: “I don’t feel we need to look a certain way to be labelled as a woman.”