Growing up the only ginger in class

In every school photo, you can find me in one second. Bottom row, bright orange head, surrounded by brown and blonde. With only 1 to 2% of the world being redheads, being the only one in class is the norm, not the exception.

Always the first one noticed

Teachers learned my name first. Substitutes pointed at me. When something happened, people remembered "the red-haired girl". Great when you're doing something good. Less great when you're passing notes.

When the jokes go too far

Kids repeat what they see. After South Park's "Ginger Kids" episode in 2005, "gingers have no soul" became a playground line. In November 2008, a Facebook group called "National Kick a Ginger Day" reached more than 20,000 members, and red-haired students were actually attacked in schools in Canada and the United States. The group's creator was 14 and said it was a joke.

The numbers back up what redheads feel. In a 2014 survey of 1,742 people at University College Cork, over 90% of red-haired men and 87% of red-haired women said they had been bullied because of their hair.

The turning point

Somewhere around my teens, strangers started saying something different: "Your hair is gorgeous." "I'd pay a fortune for that color." The same thing people made fun of became the thing people complimented. History did the same thing: in the 1500s, Queen Elizabeth I's natural red hair made red so fashionable that people dyed their hair to look like her.

The thing they teased me for is the thing I'm known for now.

If you're a young redhead reading this: keep the hair. It gets better. A lot better.