Her Senegalese twists were not just a hairstyle. They were part of her political identity — little girls copied them. Then, in the fall of 2019, she started waking up to sinkfuls of hair.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley built a public image that millions of Black women recognized instantly: powerful, polished, and crowned with those signature twists. So when the hair started going, she did not just lose a look. She started carrying a secret — at work, on camera, and in some of the most public moments of her career.
The sink filled with hair
It started in the fall of 2019, while she was getting her hair re-twisted. That is when she learned she had bald patches.
Within weeks, the loss had accelerated. In her own telling, she was “waking up to sinkfuls of hair.” Anyone who has watched their hair come away day after day knows that dread — checking the sink, checking the pillow, doing quiet math about how much is left.
Alopecia does not ask about your schedule. Hers was about to collide with one of the biggest political days of the year.
The night before the vote
The last of her hair fell out the night before the December 18, 2019 impeachment vote.
Think about that timing. A congresswoman is about to walk onto the House floor, in front of the whole country, for a historic vote — and the night before, the last of the hair that had defined her public image is gone.
A stylist built her a wig in hours. She put it on, went to the floor, and cast her vote. Then she hid in a bathroom stall.
This was not a woman who had made peace with it yet. This was a woman getting through the day the only way she could — do the job, hold it together in public, and fall apart somewhere private.
“I want to be freed from the secret”
On January 16, 2020, she chose a different way.
In a video for The Root, Pressley revealed her alopecia publicly — and removed the wig on camera. No soft launch. No carefully worded statement that let everybody keep pretending. She showed the country exactly what she had been hiding.
Her words explain why: “I want to be freed from the secret and the shame that that secret carries with it.”
And then the line that turns a reveal into a mission: “I’m not here just to occupy space — I’m here to create it.”
That is the heart of this story. The shame was never really about the hair. It was about the secrecy — the daily work of hiding, covering, and worrying that being found out would somehow make her less. By naming it on camera, she took that power away from the secret and handed it to every woman watching who was hiding the same thing.
Why women saw themselves in her
Pressley’s twists had meant something to people before she lost them — little girls copied them because representation you can wear matters. Her bald head came to mean something, too.
For women living with alopecia, thinning, or hair loss they have never told anybody about, here was a sitting member of Congress saying the quiet part out loud: the loss hurts, the hiding hurts more, and neither one disqualifies you from taking up space.
She did not wait until she felt ready and fearless. The bathroom stall came first. The freedom came because she spoke anyway.
Join the conversation
Have you — or someone you love — ever carried hair loss as a secret, covering it up and hoping nobody noticed? What do you think it took for her to take that wig off on camera, knowing the whole country would see? Tell us below.
Source note: The account of Pressley’s signature Senegalese twists, the bald patches discovered while getting her hair re-twisted in fall 2019, “waking up to sinkfuls of hair,” the last of her hair falling out the night before the December 18, 2019 impeachment vote, the wig built by a stylist in hours, and her hiding in a bathroom stall after casting her vote is from her January 16, 2020 reveal video for The Root, with coverage by the Associated Press and NPR. The quotations “I want to be freed from the secret and the shame that that secret carries with it” and “I’m not here just to occupy space — I’m here to create it” are from that reveal.
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