People considered me ugly as a child. Now, I know they were wrong
From “Ugly” to Beautiful: A Daughter’s Journey of Self-Acceptance
People considered me ugly as a child – Stephanie Fairyington, a Brooklyn-based journalist and writer, has released a compelling new memoir that doubles as an aesthetic social history titled “Ugly: A Letter to My Daughter.” Drawing extensively from her personal experiences, the work explores themes of beauty standards, identity, and self-worth. A pseudonym appears for one family member to maintain privacy.
The Moment Everything Changed
At just ten years old, Fairyington recalls the first time someone essentially labeled her as unattractive. Following a swim at her family’s pool, she was sprinting along the streets of her Downey, California neighborhood—a cul-de-sac on Cord Avenue—when an encounter altered her self-perception forever. A woman scrunched her nose and posed a pointed question to another mother, one beloved by all the neighborhood children.
“Who’s that?” she asked a fellow mom, the one all the kids loved.
The response came quickly. “Oh, that’s Chrysi’s daughter.” (This is not her mother’s actual name.) But the follow-up remark struck like a blow. The woman replied incredulously, “That’s Chrysi’s daughter?”
Fairyington didn’t catch the reply. What she remembered vividly was fleeing the scene of pool-drenched children shrieking in every direction. She fabricated an excuse about needing to use the bathroom and retreated home. In that moment, she realized the aesthetic gap between her mother’s conventional beauty and her own appearance was far greater than she had imagined. Yet she had never heard anyone voice aloud what she had always felt inside.
A Tale of Two Daughters
Her mother, possibly sensing the unspoken judgments, consistently worked to convince her that she was “beautiful,” though believing this became increasingly difficult as cultural messages contradicted her mother’s reassurances. It wasn’t until her late teens, when she came out, that she discovered community—and experienced genuine attraction for the first time.
By age ten, Fairyington had already entered puberty. Acne covered her face, her teeth protruded noticeably, and she possessed a full figure. Her tomboy wardrobe—consisting of worn T-shirts, surfer shorts, scuffed Chuck Taylor low-tops, and knees marked with scabs and bruises from skateboard mishaps—drew curious glances. Her mother, by contrast, was blue-eyed, blond-haired, full-lipped, and high-cheekboned, resembling someone who belonged in a 1980s advertisement for an elegant fashion label.
Her life then was parties, cigarettes, beer and make-out sessions with her schools’ most desirable boys.
During her teenage years, peers had crowned her mother as having the best figure, being the biggest flirt, possessing the sharpest humor, and finishing as runner-up for prom queen. Meanwhile, Fairyington’s existence involved library lunches, social invisibility, baggy clothing that minimized her femininity, and complete inhibition.
Queer Identity and Cultural Perception
Fairyington has long connected their divergent life paths to her mother’s genetic fortune and success at “performing” beauty, versus her own perceived failure. When people discovered their relationship, their expressions often recoiled as though encountering something disagreeable. The revelation that they were mother and daughter seemed to provoke disdain.
She believes this animosity stemmed partly from her inability to meet cultural expectations regarding femininity, beauty, and male attention. Her appearance wasn’t the sole source of curiosity, however. While tomboy attire suits prepubescent girls, beneath her boyish clothing she appeared as a grown woman—a gender outlier, an anomaly.
To call someone a lesbian back then was to call them ugly. In some ways, it still is.
Her friend’s parents weren’t the only ones who perceived something unusual—something queer—about her. Schoolmates noticed something “crooked” as well. Despite her efforts to conceal any hints of her queerness through teased bangs held in hairspray and feigned interest in boys, something about her didn’t seem to fit. Walking behind a friend in fifth grade, she overheard that friend tell a mutual acquaintance she believed Fairyington was a lesbian.
How had this child identified such a thing in elementary school? Was it her goofy manner of amusing girls? Was it the way her gender presentation didn’t fully align with traditional femininity? Was it something about her movement? Historian Lillian Faderman has chronicled a lengthy history demonstrating how society attempted to undermine feminism by labeling women who advocated for their rights as lesbians. “Lesbian” became shorthand for “masculine” or “abnormal woman,” and therefore unattractive.
In every direction, Fairyington registered as odd and unappealing—mirroring how she viewed and experienced herself. That sense of “not-rightness” haunted her, relentless as a persistent bully, throughout her adolescence.
Things began transforming when she came out at nineteen and started spending time in San Diego’s Hillcrest, an LGBTQ neighborhood where she finally found belonging.
