please love me

By Shubhreet Dadrao · Oct. 17, 2023, 5:59 p.m.

Isa S. You / The Ubyssey

This article contains discussion of eating disorders.

This article is a part of The Ubyssey's 2023 creative non-fiction supplement, beauty.

From Features - beauty: 2023 creative non-fiction supplement

Seeing past my reflection

When I was younger, I never understood why the spots on my face were called beauty marks when they didn’t make me feel more beautiful, but quite the opposite in fact.

Elena Zanuzzi • October 24

Butch is beautiful: Medusa in the hair salon

Medusa struggles to let someone hold her femininity in their hands. She fears opening herself up, showing the most sacred part of herself to a room that sees her snakes as a poor excuse for what a woman is supposed to have.

Amelia Brooker • October 21

Threading is cultural, political, familial

Though my mom would hold my eyebrow skin taught, when I looked in the mirror, I’d smile at myself. Not because I thought I looked better — or fundamentally different, even — but because I felt better. I felt like an adult. I felt like a woman. And I felt brown.

Iman Janmohamed • October 18

Beauty is walking into the woods

From a queer perspective, the idea of embodying something genderless is incredibly empowering. But I understand not everybody wants to cosplay as a plant.

Karen Zhou • October 18

The woes of 'growing up ugly'

Saying I “grew up ugly” doesn’t mean I was ugly — it meant that I never quite fit in the way other people did, and that's especially difficult when you have been forced to adapt to different standards of beauty your whole life.

Regina Hipolito • October 18

Beauty blossoms and changes with us

And looking back to the young girl who secretly shaved her legs, I see a girl who just didn’t know how to exist in a body that seemingly developed overnight. But most importantly I see a girl who thinks she is anything but beautiful. I see a girl who was wrong.

Rhea Mann • October 18