One of Dana Bannon’s most traumatic childhood memories was when her “tomboy” mother took her to a barbershop for a trendy feathered cut and instead she left with a boyish mullet.
Mortified, she taught herself to cut her own hair and saved her allowance to get highlights at JCPenney. Both experiences proved to be pinnacle coming-of-age moments for her as a cisgender woman.
“That was when my glow-up happened. I totally changed into a teenager,” Bannon recalled. “I saw the power in how [a haircut] made you feel and the fun in experimenting.”
Now a 20-year veteran of the hair industry and owner of Pageboy Salon in Millvale, Bannon, 40, considers hairstyling an especially important form of self-expression for those who are exploring their gender identity. She has accompanied multiple clients’ gender transitions, listening closely as to how they want to be perceived in the world and translating that information to how she cuts their hair.
“It is from my experience a very validating and necessary component to gender expression,” she said. “[Hair] is one of the first things that someone is doing to experiment with what they want to look like. They [become a] full-blown person that they have always felt inside.”
Since 2010, Bannon and her team have challenged traditional salon gender norms by removing gendered services and prices, advocating for preferred pronoun use between clients and stylists, and facilitating an environment that feels neutral and welcoming.
She describes how women who want to present more masculine, for example, may feel unnerved by the “locker room talk” that can saturate a traditional barbershop setting but not know where else to get their desired cut.
“It’s really intimidating to go into a male-dominated environment and still be a woman. They deserve to get their haircut and look the way they want to look,” she said. “We became a safe haven.”
Bannon describes a “gender-affirming” haircut as any style that makes a person’s outward appearance match their inward, spiritual identity. In practice, this often looks like accentuating or masking facial features with cuts, colors and styles per the client’s request. To think that this definition describes practically any haircut — regardless of a person’s intention — is absolutely what she and others aim for.
“Any haircut theoretically is gender affirming,” laughed Mary Terrett, a stylist at Garfield’s Halcyon Salon. “Any kind of cut that aids a queer person in feeling euphoric or expressive of the complications, nuances or even simplicity of their gender.”
Terrett, 28, whose pronouns are they/them, describes hair as an impermanent yet significant avenue for someone’s gender expression, referring both to their Halcyon clients and their personal nonbinary journey.
“I feel like some of the most meaningful changes in honor of my gender have involved my hair,” they said. “You can track your development as a human through your hair history.”
As a stylist, Terrett wholeheartedly trusts the visions of those who sit in their chair, and takes special care to make even mechanical conversations about hair care, products and styling techniques meaningful.
“I want to be a person who facilitates their autonomy and not a person who pushes against it,” they explained. “I have a lot of trans women clients who haven’t had the luxury of growing up with a constant flow of information about hair care, and in a practical way, that becomes the most important part of a gender-affirming haircut.”
Bannon hopes that more salons will value gender-neutral, inclusive language and environments, not to abide by a trendy business model but from a genuine desire to welcome the queer community into their spaces.
“I’m excited to see these [gender] lines continue to be blurred,” she said. “It’s not feminizing or masculinizing anything. It’s just hair or makeup. It’s all expression.”
Terrett added that it’s not enough for one stylist to combat transphobic gender norms, but effective change happens with the strength of an entire community.
“Me being able to do anything in this realm has been aided and facilitated by the space I’ve been able to do my work,” Terrett said. “Halcyon is an incredible fixture in the community.
“It’s not just me that creates this space, but the effort of my entire team.”
Pageboy Salon is located at 420 North Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15209 | 412-224-2294.
Halcyon Salon is located at 5008 Penn Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15224 | 412-897-6412.
Jordan Stovka is a composer in the advertising department of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but she's currently on strike.