Now that Kim Kardashian's shapewear line has everyone talking about pubic hair, thanks to their release of faux hair thongs available in different colors and textures, it feels like the right time to have a serious conversation about body hair.But first, let's take a step back and talk about hair more broadly. We use hairstyling it, shaping it, or removing itto express and accessorize our gender. When we go to salons, we're not just framing our faces or keeping up appearances; we're also performing and affirming our gender identities.From a young age, we learn what hairstyles are considered "for girls" and which are "for boys."I remember when my son was three years old, and one of his preschool teachers asked me and his other mother why we chose a "girl's hairstyle" for him. Our son liked having longer hair (and still does). Long hair isn't exclusive to people with vaginas, but to his teacher, a boy with long hair didn't "look right."At the time, my partner, Ranita, was working on her book. For the project, she spent three years shadowing students from third to sixth grade, documenting their daily experiences inside classrooms. What she discovered was both daunting and disturbing: many children were regularly mocked not by classmates, but by their teachers. Teachers made fun of immigrant kids' accents, their clothing, and, yes, even their hair.Given my partner's work, I shouldn't have been surprised that an educator made our child self-conscious about his hairstyle. But I was. That same day, our three-year-old asked if boys could have long hair. After dinner, we googled "men with long hair." As we scrolled through images, he smiled; we talked about how no one is truly immune to the subtle, slow forms of violence that happen in schools.That was two years ago. Our son, in kindergarten this year, still likes to keep his hair long. We are proud of him for not seeing hairstyles as either for "boys" or "girls" but instead as simply hairstyles.Hair and the act of removing it have a long social history. Some estimates suggest that 99% of women have tried some form of hair removal, and around 85% regularly remove body hair.While Kardashian's faux hair thongs may seem funny at first, we should pause to consider the harm behind that laughter.Women already feel pressure to manage their body hair. And while men may feel some of the same pressure, it is stronger for women. Take, for example, pubic hair. Many women, in particular, monitor their pubic hair for the comfort of their romantic partners: shaving, trimming, or waxing, often not for themselves but to avoid judgment or jokes about their "bushes."Others, such as people born with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS), one of more than two dozen intersex traits, have little to no pubic hair at all. And they, too, become targets of cruel humor.As a sociologist with CAIS who studies the lived experiences of intersex people, I know firsthand that pubic hair or the absence of it can be deeply personal and even traumatic. Intersex people with CAIS have told me about being mocked by male partners for having no pubic hair. Or being called "prepubescent," "gross," or even "abnormal." When intersex people with CAIS like myself point out that many women pay good money to remove their pubic hair, those same partners double down, saying, "Well, they don't remove all of it!"Clearly, they've never heard of Brazilian waxes.When it comes to pubic hair, women can't seem to win.When I treated myself to a facial more than a decade ago, an esthetician asked me if I was interested in their waxing services. "My unibrow is that bad, huh?" I laughed, which I often do in uncomfortable situations. I don't think she believed me when I shared that "I used to regularly get my eyebrows waxed" because she went on to say, "It won't hurt and I also have time in my schedule to do a bikini wax if you'd be interested."I was in her salon for a facial. Not for hair removal. But that didn't stop the otherwise friendly esthetician from making me feel self-conscious about my eyebrows and (lack of) pubic hair. She didn't know I had CAIS, and thus didn't have hair on my vagina, but the stigma still stung deep.I left her salon that day with my humor wrapped tightly around my unibrow and my threeyes, only threepubic hairs intact. I've had those three hairs for what seems like years. And, as I later joked with a friend, there was no way in hell I was going to let anyone yank those three hairs out. We laughed about it, which I know firsthand can be the best medicine. Still, there is a difference between laughing as a defense mechanism and laughing at someone or something you're not thinking critically about.So, before you share a link to Kardashian's sold-out faux hair thongs for a laugh, think twice. The joke might come back around the next time you feel pressure to "tidy up" your bikini line. Or when you notice how every strand of hair on our bodies is still policed by gender.Georgiann Davis is an intersex scholar-activist at the University of New Mexico. She is the author of Five Star White Trash: A Memoir of Fraud and Family.Voices is dedicated to featuring a wide range of inspiring personal stories and impactful opinions from the LGBTQ+ community and its allies. Visit Out.com/submit to learn more about submission guidelines. We welcome your thoughts and feedback on any of our stories. Email us at voices@equalpride.com. Views expressed in Voices stories are those of the guest writers, columnists, and editors, and do not directly represent the views of Out or our parent company, equalpride.