“People Only Know Me as a Freak,” The Wolf Man Struggles to Find a Job Outside the Circus

Jesús Aceves has hypertrichosis, which makes his hair grow abundantly over his face and back. Because of his condition, he’s also known as The Wolf Man. But he’s tired of this alias and wants to live a normal life.

Meet Jesús Aceves, a 55-year-old man born with a condition called hypertrichosis, which means he has abnormal hair growth over his body, especially his face. Although married with kids, Jesús isn’t fully happy with his living conditions. He says he and his family suffer discrimination. In an interview, one of his kids mentioned, “People call me names, and they even tell their kids not to be my friends.”

He worked in the circus all his life, traveling through several cities. But now, he’s tired of being seen as a freak. As a consequence of years on the road, he’s been known as The Wolf Man.

Back home and not in the circus anymore, he’s facing another challenge: finding a “normal” job. He needs to support his family since his wife works in temporary jobs.

After several failed job interviews, he agreed to try something he had always avoided: shave his face. He relied on his family barber to transform him, even creating eyebrows and lashes.

The experience was difficult since the face is an extremely sensitive body area, but both he and his wife believed that simply by shaving, he would be able to find a job.

Jesús did several interviews, and it’s confident that now he’ll find somewhere to work besides the circus. If this happens, he must shave his face every 2 days.

Although rare, some conditions aren’t impossible to have. Luckily, people find a way to overcome the difficulties a rare condition brings and strive in life. Hannah Tyre, for example, was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, meaning that her bones break very easily. But her love for makeup made her an internet influencer, reaching millions of followers. We hope that, by reaching the mainstream media, people with genetic diseases won’t suffer more discrimination.

Preview photo credit A True Story / Youtube

If you see a man with one painted fingernail, here’s what it means

When Elliot Costello and a group of other people visited Cambodia, he had an encounter with a young girl named Thea.

Little did Elliot know that this encounter would have an impact so profound on him that it would help start a movement whose goal is to end sexual abuse against children.

Namely, Thea always had nail polish on her tiny nails. One day, as she and Elliot chatted, she asked to paint one of his nails. He agreed and was happy to speak to the chatty girl, but he then learned that she was once a victim of sexual abuse.

“As she painted one of my nails, I assured her I would always keep it that way to remember her, and by extension, her suffering,” Elliot said.

This motivated Elliot to try and make positive change among men so that less and less children fall victims of sexual abuse.

That is when he came up with the movement called #PolishedMan where men put nail polish on one of their nails. That one nail represents the one in five children who will be victims of sexual violence.

Polished Man works towards ending sexual violence against children. According to the organization, “being a Polished Man means challenging violent behavior and language, both locally and globally.”

Elliot believes that since men are responsible for 96% of this type of violence against children globally, they should be catalyst for change if we are ever to see an end to the abuse of innocent children.

The goal with the painted nail isn’t just to remind people of the number of children who are abused every single day, but to serve as a conversation starter about this reality, leading to new ideas about prevention. He also hopes that people will start donating to “support educational programs and resources for child survivors of abuse,” as per APlus.

We hope that more men, including celebrities

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