During a recent Fantasia Fair conference, I attended a lecture at Fantasia Fair by Dr. Jeffrey Spiegel, the head of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the Boston Medical Center. Although his lecture was geared towards advances in facial feminization procedures, he brought up numerous points that I felt were of interest to even the casual crossdresser. Some of these points came from asking the question "why do we have eyebrows?"

This is not a new question. People have long wondered why humans have eyebrows. Do they serve a purpose or are they just a fluke of evolution? Why was it that as we humans evolved, we lost most of the thick hair on our bodies but kept little bits of hair over our eyes? Nobody seems to know for sure why we kept our eyebrow hair, but there are some good theories.

Historically, the thought was that the purpose of eyebrows was to help keep sweat or rain out of our eyes. This would be helpful to our early ancestors since they would not have to wipe the moisture from their eyes as they broke a sweat when being chased by a saber-toothed tiger or other nasty creature. Although this theory sounds reasonable, unless one had a brow like Herman Munster, the sweat and rain still got into the eyes pretty easily.

Recent research suggests other theories why we did not lose our eyebrows and these theories consider the fact that eyebrows are very expressive and they help with recognition.

Eyebrows help with human communications. Often, you can tell how a person is reacting to something just by the way they move their eyebrows. One of the clearest ways to tell somebody what you're thinking is to simply move your eyebrows up or down. High eyebrows usually denote such emotions as surprise or happiness whereas low furled brows usually denote things such as anger or unhappiness. In fact, people often get more non-verbal cues from eyebrows that with eyes - even at some distance.

Also, eyebrows are very important in identification. A recent study conducted asked participants to identify well-know individuals, such as Harrison Ford. To do this, participants were given pictures of these individuals that hid the eyes of each subject, but not their eyebrows. With the eyes hidden, recognition was around 85%. When their brows were hidden and not the eyes, recognition dropped to around 45%. Clearly, eyebrows hold a significant role in how well we recognize others.

The latest theories conclude that eyebrows helped with natural selection. With eyebrows, you more easily recognize friend from foe. When the cavemen saw a bunch of people with spears coming over the ridge, they could more easily recognize who they were from their facial features – especially eyebrows. If they did not recognize them, they could at least get a sense from their facial expressions if they were angry or they were pleased. Such cues told them if they should run away, pick up a club to defend themselves, or greet these people. In short, such non-verbal communication helped our early ancestors survive.

Even today, eyebrows are important. They still convey emotion and they help with recognition. They are a significant aspect of our appearance as they are one of the most distinctive features that make up our faces, and people pay a lot of attention to them. As one of our most expressive facial features, eyebrows are important in presenting gender cues. In fact, eyebrows pay a big role in how well we t-gals can pass.

For practical reasons, many of us t-gals can't have beautifully arched, thin eyebrows. Still, there are things that we can do with our eyebrows to help with our presentation as females. We can make sure that we don't have a "mono-brow," that our eyebrows aren't too thick, and our brow hairs are kept reasonably trim. A good pair of tweezers and a beard trimmer can help keep your brows neat and clean. If you wear a wig, you can use tape under the wig to pull the skin on your forehead up a bit to give your brows a gentle, feminine arch. Not only does this trick arch your eyebrows, it also gives you a "temporary face lift." You can even use clear mascara to help shape your brows.

The best trick is to have a professional do your brows and then you can maintain them afterwards. A professional will likely do a better job than an amateur ( i.e. you). This begs the question of how do you find such a professional. I found my hair stylist by attending a local drag show and asking the other t-gals who they use as a stylist. With a t-friendly professional, you can be open and honest with them about wanting to look decent as a girl without looking awkward as a boy and they can help you find that balance.

Because brows are so important, even small changes can make a big impact on your presentation. It is well worth the time and effort to keep them neat and clean. The best part is that taking care of your brows is that it is easy and it is cheap!