Bearded woman finally entering American sanctuary (8)
I believe the answer is:
unshaven
'bearded' is the definition.
('unshaven' can be similar in meaning to 'bearded')
'woman finally entering american sanctuary' is the wordplay.
'finally' suggests the final letters.
'entering' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'american' becomes 'us'.
'sanctuary' becomes 'haven' (I've seen this before**).
The last letter of 'woman' is 'n'.
'n' inserted within 'us' is 'uns'.
'uns'+'haven'='UNSHAVEN'
(Other definitions for unshaven that I've seen before include "Bearded characters" , "Showing facial stubble" , "Stubbly" , "Not having removed incipient beard" , "whiskers to deal with?" .)