Two queens of Halloween costumes, Drew Burnett Gregory and Kristen Arnett, have previously rated their costumes for Autostraddle, and now it’s my turn. In Drew’s list, she mentions how trans people often use Halloween costumes to explore their gender expression, though she did not. That was absolutely the case for me though, whether it was conscious or not, because as I look at the list of costumes here, I dressed so frequently as men/male characters far before realizing I was trans.

I’m the youngest child of four, so there’s not many photos of me in general, and definitely not from Halloween, so there’s big chunks missing between 1996 and 2010. There’s also gaps in years here because I deleted so many photos from my Facebook after graduation and failed to save them elsewhere. Other photos were posted to my old private Instagram account that I no longer have access to (RIP). I don’t think we’re missing too much though.

1999: Simba from Lion King

I have no idea what I’m holding in my hand here. A leaf perhaps? I don’t remember what it was like to be Simba at three years old but I do remember that my mom handmade this costume, as she did for many of our costumes for Halloween and school plays growing up.

Rating: 10/10 I look cute as heck and it’s giving genderqueer kid.

2000 (and many consecutive years): Harry Potter

I was a huge Harry Potter kid and when I tell people I used to dress as Harry Potter for many Halloweens in a row they’ll ask “Oh were you Hermione?” and I have to be like “No… I was Harry Potter.” This Hedwig stuffy I had was so cute I could velcro his feet around my arm so he’d be perched like a real owl.

9/10: I mean look at the smile on my face! Deducting a point for transphobia.

2010: Playboy Bunny

I was a freshman dating a junior, so I was invited to a Real House Party where half the girls loved me and the other half hated me. I’m pretty sure my boyfriend at the time was dressed as Hugh Hefner in a robe and slippers, but I can’t find any photos. It was pretty bold of us to play into the age difference with our costumes considering I was fully 14-years-old here — but any excuse to wear my Victoria Secret Bombshell Bra!

Rating: 6/10 body was tea but deducting points for age-appropriateness and for those leopard print tights.

2012: Hooters Girl

This Halloween was kind of ruined by Hurricane Sandy’s untimely arrival. I forget what the limitations were but my friends and I weren’t allowed to do any big plans that year and instead stayed in my development trick or treating and probably drinking Four Lokos. I had a real Hooters Girl tanktop from visiting the Manhattan location with my late aunt and paired it with skinny jeans and a leather jacket.

Rating: 4/10 lack of creativity and wasted it on a Halloween I didn’t hang with any boys

2015: Walter White and Jesse Pinkman

My sophomore year of college, my brother came to visit and we were both obsessed with Breaking Bad. My brother is already pretty much Jesse Pinkman in many ways, so it was a no brainer he’d be him. I went back and forth on which Walter White I should be and of course landed on no-pants Walter White in the desert. In this photo, I’m wearing tights and two pairs of tighty whitey underwear because I was so afraid to actually be in my underwear. This mascara goatee would be the first of many, many handmade facial hair for me. This was also only a few weeks after I’d started hooking up with my eventual college boyfriend, and the party we were going to was at his frat. My brother and I did sooo much molly this night — it rocked. He hooked up with one of my sorority sisters.

Rating: 7/10 I should have committed to the bit and shaved my head.

2016: Lola Bunny and Bugs Bunny from Space Jam

This is one of the costumes locked in my old private Instagram account. Trust that I looked cute as HELL in that costume that I made for me and my ex from scratch, just for him to cheat on me with his roommate’s sister that was visiting for the weekend.

Rating: 5/10 cute but not cute enough for him to not cheat on me :/

2017: Jim and Pam from the Office (Company Picnic episode)

I’m not going to lie, this one was 100% my idea, and I absolutely loved it. My college boyfriend had graduated the year before me, so he came up to visit for Halloweekend and I thought this was so cute. Don’t let the innocence of this costume fool you, we were on sooo many drugs and absolutely got in some kind of screaming fight outside a frat house.

Rating: 4/10 basic as fuck

2017: Mia Wallace and Vincent Vega

WE BOTH LOOKS SO HOT IN THIS COSTUME. Truly so hot and so good and not enough 20 year olds attending SUNY Oswego had seen Pulp Fiction to appreciate this costume. That bob and bang wig was sooo cunt. The most annoying thing about this costume was I wanted to smoke cigarettes all night so bad, but my college boyfriend was so anti-cigarette despite regularly doing pills behind my back (lol) he got mad at me for smelling like cigarettes at the end of the night.

Rating: 10/10 I can’t lie it was a killer costume and we did the dance and everything.

2018: The Big Lebowski

The Big Lebowski is one of my favorite movies, and The Dude is one of my favorite characters ever. Luckily, my ex Vic was just as enthusiastic about this couple’s costume as I was and I really think we assigned the roles accurately. She did a reallllly good Walter. This costume was specifically for her hometown friends’ party, and I think we were a crowd favorite. I engineered my milk carton so that I could put my beer bottle inside and still drink from it, which was pretty cool if I do say so myself. This pic doesn’t show it well, but I was in a full floor length bathrobe.

Note: I have not covered up Vic’s face because when I texted her to see if she’d be okay with me using these images, I offered to cover her and she protested “then people will think there’s bad blood!” and that’s on being friends with your first lesbian ex <3

Rating: 10/10. We looked great, it was comfy as fuck, and may or may not have pushed me along on some kind of eventual gender journey.

2019: Dumb and Dumber

I remember having to concede to this costume idea because Vic really wanted to do it. I didn’t have any opposition to being Dumb and Dumber as a concept, but I really wanted to do it in a more literal way with oversized suits and not in a “girl version” way. But alas, that’s what we did. It ended up being a hit at the party we went to at her hometown friends’ house. We couldn’t find an orange cane for her, so I wrapped it in orange electrical or duct tape.

Rating: 5/10 really fun couples costume but I stand by that it would have been better if we had just worn suits.

2019: Bob Ross

Halloween while bartending is always a little bit tricky because you want something fun but practical. I was in grad school at the time and bartending at a lesbian-owned restaurant and cocktail lounge (shoutout Lost Dog Binghamton) where they’d play random things on the TV after hours for the drunk or high customers in the lounge. Sometimes it was a crackling fireplace or the POV of an Amtrak train, other times it was Soul Train or Bob Ross. I had pretty much the whole outfit needed for a Bob Ross costume and just had to get the painting supplies and wigs.

Rating: 8/10 it was great to be in jeans behind the bar and it was a little treat for the regulars at the restaurant.

2019: Eleven (bitchin’ era)

Okay so I had literally just done the Big Chop the day prior and received some immediate comparisons to Millie Bobby Brown. It was also my first few days — let alone first Halloween — with short hair and wasn’t entirely sure what to do with it. Reflecting now, I’m like, okay, why would I do this character costume two years after its relevance? But I think it was out of necessity in a time crunch.

Rating: 9/10 honestly proud of this one and the dedication to doing a photoshoot in my neighborhood liquor store for accuracy. Docking a point for being late.

2020: Dr. Alan Grant ft. Bo as Velociraptor

I have been in a few different relationships where I have requested me and my partner be Dr. Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler, and every single one has said no. Whether it was too nerdy or not cute enough or “I haven’t even seen that movie Motti,” no one was getting down with Jurassic Park. Well, I was single for Halloween in 2020, the world was pretty much shut down, and I had quite literally everything I needed to be Alan Grant in my home already so I finally got to do what I wanted.

Rating: 7/10 I think I did a good job but this costume is just not as good without either Ellie or some other character or dinosaur from Jurassic Park. Kristen and Kayla did it right for their 2023 costume.

2021: No Costume

I think I may have had COVID this year?

2022: Carmy from The Bear

This year, I was back in New York, bartending at a Colombian lesbian restaurant, and single. I didn’t put much thought into my costume because I knew I was working the closing shift and therefore wouldn’t be making any parties. The head chef at this restaurant only used the blue aprons like in The Bear, so I showed up for my shift in a white tee and black dickies, threw on the apron, and had a co-worker draw on Carmy’s tattoos with a sharpie.

Rating: 7/10 the gay girls loved having a masc lesbian Carmy serve them drinks all night but if I’m being honest, it’s some of my laziest work.

2023: BJ and Judy Gemstone

My girlfriend and I LOVE The Righteous Gemstones and are particularly obsessed with BJ and Judy Gemstone. The episode where BJ gets baptized to show his commitment to Judy and her superreligious family kills us, and we knew we wanted to dress up as that specific episode when we first started brainstorming. It took as a WHILE to find a dress close enough to Judy’s and even longer to find an accurate-ish outfit for BJ. We ended up assembling it ourselves, pulling each individual item from different places and modifying them to work together.

Rating: 10/10 this costume was so good the actors who play BJ and Judy reshared our posts

2024: Chappell Roan and a Passenger Seat

I mean… come on. Chappell Roan and a Passenger Seat (from the song Casual) is one of my proudest ideas yet. I’ve spoken pretty extensively about this costume after it went viral for the whole “I Hate Gay Halloween, What Do You Mean You’re ____” trend. My girlfriend, Britt, knew she wanted to somehow dress as Chappell Roan since she’s halfway there with her hair anyway, and I had the crazy idea to be the passenger seat she references being knee-deep in. I constructed the passenger seat myself from scratch and had so much fun putting it together. We turned heads everywhere we went that night, especially the multiple trains we had to take to our friends’ party in Brooklyn. It’s so funny that for most of these costumes, I dressed up as men, but as soon as I started identifying as a man, I dressed up as an inanimate object. I’m sure there’s something to dissect there.

Rating: 100/10 instantly iconic costume, will be referenced for decades to come. 

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Is It Okay To Want Top Surgery This Much?

Q

I really want to get top surgery. I’m not a trans guy or non-binary. I just hate my DD boobs and always have. I have a lot of trans masc and nb friends and I feel overwhelming jealousy of their top surgery. I told my wife I wanted to do this, even if it cost money out of pocket, and she was kinda miffed about it, saying it seems like a silly thing to spend money on when we’re trying to save for a house down payment. She didn’t say NO but doesn’t seem to understand how much this means to me.  I’ve been depressed ever since that conversation.. I’m not excited about one day having a house because I will still have these boobs!! Can I feel dysphoric about my boobs even though I’m a butch woman and not trans?

A:

Summer: So it’s definitely possible to experience dysphoria about parts of the body without reconsidering their gender identity. That’s the foundation of any aesthetic modification that stems from a deep desire to ‘change’ one’s appearance. I want a nose job, but that doesn’t change my core identity. When someone has the desire to alter a secondary sexual characteristic, there’ll be inevitable questions about whether this is related to your gendered self. You’ll get those questions from medical professionals, loved ones, and yourself. It’s worth hearing out some perspectives on it, especially if they’re concerns in your own mind.

Otherwise, you sound adamant about getting top surgery. I believe what you’re looking for is a voluntary double mastectomy. Sometimes dubbed a prophylactic double mastectomy when used to reduce breast cancer risk. I can’t speak to the specifics of how to get one since that’ll depend on your place of residence, healthcare access, and even how you can advocate your position to medical professionals. But people do alter their secondary sexual characteristics because they feel disconnected from their body. Sure, most people add to, or alter their breasts rather than remove them, but that just makes you a minority, not nonexistent.

Nico: Yep. You’re not the only cis woman who’s wanted top surgery! Plenty of women, especially women on the butch/masc spectrum. Reasons include wanting to fit into the clothes that they feel good in, being tired of feeling like their breasts get in the way of exercise, and also pain from the weight of the breasts. It’s my understanding that having breasts on the larger side can be uncomfortable for some people, many of whom choose breast reduction. Finally, some women opt for just full removal instead of reduction so they can experience the freedom of not wearing a bra and even enjoy time out in the world shirtless.

Now, as for your conversation — that IS depressing. It’s also depressing that top surgery costs so much and so do house down payments. I can’t tell you two what to do financially, but the first place to start is with a conversation about your shared finances, shared goals, and how you’re getting there. And, yes, each of you are allowed to bring goals you have for yourselves and your personal fulfillment to these conversations.

Riese: I think there’s a vast spectrum of gender experiences and presentations that a person can have —you can not identify as trans and/or nonbinary but still feel that not having boobs is part of how your specific gender is best expressed. I feel like the jury’s still out on what exactly goes into any given experience of gender. But I know lots of people who’ve gotten top surgery despite not identifying as trans and/or nonbinary —some did, eventually, come out as trans and/or nonbinary, but many did not! Also I imagine DD boobs are pretty heavy, it’s within reason that you’d want to downsize those guys, and why not just downsize them all the way? You could probably finance part of the surgery if there are out-of-pocket expenses — but I think what Nico said is really important —you are allowed to bring goals you have for your own personal fulfillment to these financial conversations.

How Can I Learn To Love My Body?

Q

Hey! I need advice about crippling body image issues that have recently come up for me. I am a 30-something year old, who in the last 5 years has realised I am EXTREMELY queer, and loving my new-found acceptance of my sexual identity. More recently, I have also been having some _feelings_ about gender – I think I am non-binary, and leaning into the more masc side of my identity, and starting to embrace that too.

This is all background to say, I have all of these new swirling feelings about sexuality and gender, most of which are euphoric. BUT along with this, I have been so uncomfortable with my body I sometimes feel I want to rip my skin off. I have had (what I feel are) the usual body concerns growing up AFAB – diet culture and the like have made me aware of being too “big” or not feminine enough. I have done my best to combat this, and I have been a weightlifter for about 10 years. As a result of this, I have a really big, muscular frame – which sounds like it should be a brag – but along with hips and breasts and a new masc gender feeling, all of this has left me in a mess of body dysphoria. I think the advice I am asking is this: apart from therapy (which I am doing), what are some ways I can learn to love my body where it is at, as it is, without becoming obsessed with how people perceive me? I understand that maybe I am asking you to answer the equivalent to the meaning of life, but as a group of cool queer people, do you have any advice on radical body acceptance, gender acceptance, and love?

A

Summer: I’m sure you’ll get diverse opinions about this one. The angle I try to advise people on in this situation is informed by body neutrality. It’s an approach that tries to remove positive and negative value judgments from body image and first reduce bodies to their component functions. Before building up values again slowly.

So it would be like not seeing parts of your body as being ‘beautiful’ or ‘unattractive’, but looking toward their function. You are a weightlifter and you have robust arm, back, and core muscles. You have a sizable frame that supports these functions and provides necessary cushion when lifting. And so forth.

Another thing about body neutrality is that its orientation is not viciously positive. It leaves room to be dissatisfied with the functions and aesthetics of parts of your body, but encourages seeing the proverbial greener grass. Now, part of the dysphoria you’re experiencing is clearly gendered, and this won’t cut through that brand of dysphoria entirely. But it can give you a detached approach on some parts of yourself so that you’re not always drowning in value judgements from within and without.

Nico: I think that along with body neutrality, it might help to invest some time into styling. If you can feel comfortable in your clothes when out in the world, then you can be more comfortable with how people perceive you. Have you found pants that you feel look good on you and that also you feel bring out your masc-ness? Have you figured out where you feel most comfortable on the bra-less – bra – sports bra – binder spectrum? Dressing yourself well and in ways that make you feel confident before you leave your home can help you deal with worrying about how people perceive you.

I love that you’re going to therapy. I also recommend just exposing yourself to stories and media created by and featuring queer people as much as possible. The more you see all the awesome and hot ways masc queer people can be — and exist, and have bodies, the better I think you’ll be able to place yourself within that world. Autostraddle has a huge archive of everything — books, movie, TV, whatever your jam may be. And as for people perceiving you, I think it’s helpful to keep in mind that what is happening in your head — a preoccupation with your own world — is the norm. People may perceive you, and then they will perceive the next person, and the next, and the next. If in closer relationships — dating, friendships, etc. — you feel like people aren’t treating you in affirming ways, I hope that you feel like those relationships are ones where you can have those conversations. If not, then that merits evaluating those relationships.

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