Meet Shauna Rae .
She may look around eight, but she’s actually 23 . Crazy to believe, right? Her young looks are the result of pituitary dwarfism, which she developed after battling brain cancer as a child.
Her looks have been known to turn heads — particularly the ones of “creepy” men . Here, she opens up about what it’s like to have these creeps hit on her.
At three foot 10 and 50 pounds, Shauna really does look like a child.
This has caused a lot of issues for Shauna, who has been chronicling her life on the TLC reality series, I Am Shauna Rae , which is currently in its second season.
“People don’t understand that I’m an adult,” she said in the first episode of the new season of her show.
“If you look at me, you see an eight-year-old,” she explained to the New York Post . You have to look closely to see that there’s an adult in there.
“But I think if you take the time to look at the details in my face, in my hands, the maturity in my body – and I think if you take the time to actually talk to me – you really understand that I’m a 23-year-old.”
She’s even pursuing post-education like an adult.
The show has documented her process of pursuing a college degree in either business or veterinary science.
It’s also shown Shauna Rae dipping her toe into the dating world.
Due to her child-like size, this has meant dealing with her fair share of creeps.
And she’s not the only one.
Back in August, a woman on TikTok named Grace went viral documenting what happened after she decided to wear pigtails to work one night . She was horrified to discover that the hairstyle, typically associated with little girls, earned her lots of tips.
After her video went viral, other women chimed in with their own experiences of being sexualized.
“I do it because it’s such an easy hairstyle when i forgot to put up my hair but i’m always getting hit on by older men and now it makes sense,” one woman wrote.
“They told us to do this in Girl Scouts to sell more cookies,” another added.
“The only time I ever got compliments or hit on at work was when I was wearing pigtails,” a fourth wrote.
The video prompted other service workers to try the “pigtails experiment” to see if they received more tips than usual. Unfortunately, they did.
RELATED STORIES
Since this is sadly the world we live in, Shauna has come up with a way to suss out the creeps.
“I’ve just developed the ability to spot someone who may not have the best intentions because they give themselves away,” she said.
“Their questions are very targeted towards my physicality … They’re learning about me like I’m a specimen in a lab,” she continued.
On her show, she was even set up on a blind date with a 20-year-old man named Thomas who also has dwarfism. He only stands at four feet eight.
“He didn’t have to sit there and have a medical talk with me, which is what I have to do with most men that I date,” she said.
“It was nice I didn’t have to walk him through that,” she added.
In addition to a complicated love life, Shauna says her small stature causes struggles with other things, like getting her license and having blood drawn.
“It’s painful when society doesn’t accept you for who you are,” she said. “I want people to not question me when I say who I am. I’m OK with showing proof, if necessary. But if you’re a typical regular Joe off the street, then you need to take me at my word.”
Sounds hectic!
