gray

Sekile Nzinga, chief equity officer of Illinois, 51

“I went to a stylist on my 47th birthday, and she cut almost all my dyed hair out. I was scared at first, but it felt good — I felt surprisingly like myself. This came around the same time I came out as queer, so I jokingly say 2017 was the year I went ‘gay and gray.’ I was uncovering the last bits of authentic self. I am very comfortable with who I am becoming, and my gray hair is part of that journey.”

spotted my first strands of silvery hair when I was 24. They looked pretty,