Meagan Riley Nealy-Stevenson heard it more than once.
Ex-partners who told her that the hair around her neck was “disgusting”. Strangers who did not hesitate to comment on a body that did not even belong to them. Every comment pointed to the same thing: something as normal as facial hair, turned into a reason for ridicule.
But she decided not to carry that shame imposed by others. “I love the hair on my neck”, she said, distancing herself from years of cruel comments. She did not ask permission to feel good about her own reflection, and that decision—simple, but uncomfortable for those who expected her to apologize for existing that way—is what holds her whole story together.
Today she repeats it without hesitation: she feels beautiful. And that phrase, so short, is what more people are beginning to repeat after hearing her.