Beyond the Binary: Shedding the Costume of Inauthentic Expression

As a late-October Scorpio and a Certified Spooky™ brat, fall and Halloween have always held a special place in my heart. 

I look at the season as a whole beyond the single holiday. I started ramping up my horror movie intake back in July of this year, and I’ve got a lengthy bucket list of festive agenda items I’m steadily checking off. 

(Hello corn mazes, haunted houses, and pumpkin anything and everything!)

Reflecting on Halloween and the specific act of donning a costume, I think back to my adolescence and adulthood, before coming out as nonbinary and trans, honestly before I even lived fully in my queerness as I do today, and seeing where I landed.

As much as I love horror, I often veered more toward eccentric, femme-leaning looks for the holiday as I got older.

At the time, I’d phrase it, “Should I go silly or scary this year?” It was my defense mechanism with peers, family, and myself, as I bought heels, fish nets, makeup, as a reminder, “This is just a costume.”

I think of one of my first Halloween costumes that fit the bill: I was 18 and found a hat that vaguely looked like a police cap at Goodwill and envisioned it fully bedazzled. Suddenly, the entire character was crystal clear in my mind: Officer Fabulous, a queer AF defender of justice. I found a somewhat-complimentary black jacket that I similarly littered with jewels, a vibrant pair of yellow short shorts, lacy red gloves with the fingers cut off, thigh-high neon fishnets, six-inch platforms (that were at least two sizes too small), among other accessories.

As much as I cringe at the idea that I dressed up as a cop in any capacity (as the master of this lore, I deem Officer Fabulous a vigilante without any actual police affiliation), it was such a blast to put that costume together. Leading up to the officer’s debut, I frantically snagged additional items at thrift and craft stores that fit the color palette, little accessories I could throw on for some extra flair. It was a blast.

Similarly, years later, I reused the same platform shoes and gathered an array of Christmas-adjacent items that felt similarly very queer, very femme, and very different than the clothes I wore in my day-to-day life. This one was Santa Fierce, basically a queer and sexy Christmas character in the same vain as Officer Fabulous: thigh-high candy cane tights, bright red gloves, furry white trim anywhere it would fit, even little ornaments attached to the platforms that jingled with each step.

In retrospect, they felt less like costumes and more like drag, alternate visions of some part of myself. Recounting these looks, it feels as though they were more authentic to my expression and that I was truly wearing the “costume” day-to-day, throughout most of my teenage and adult life.

To give you an idea of my closet from my late-teens to my mid-20s, think shirts with huge skateboard brand logos I got from Zumiez or PacSun when I was a teenager (I didn’t skateboard), a collection of basic and traditionally “masculine” color palettes and patterns purchased with my mom’s Kohl’s cash, maybe a few graphic tees, and some of the ugliest and bulkiest cargo pants you could imagineBasically, it was a messy collection hearkening back to the abundance of styles I awkwardly tried out as a teenager. Very little of this closet felt like the “me” I know today. When I look at the way I not only understand myself, my identity, and my gender today, alongside the fashion I was simply defaulting to versus what I choose intentionally for myself today, it blows my mind.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but looking back at my time in college especially, I always wanted comfortably embrace my queerness while also feeling like “one of the guys,” staying “chill,” and trying to veer away from conflict so as to avoid being labeled as uptight. I tried to be “masculine” without any sort of inkling of what that even meant for me specifically and why it was something I wanted.

I have been out as queer for well over a decade, though I was always careful not to be “too queer” until the late 2010s. Looking back at old social media videos from the time recently, albeit my normal vocal register is moderately deep, I noticed that I avoided certain inflections and consistently kept my voice in those lower octaves.

I strayed away from the fashion I knew I liked, the bright colors and femme-leaning, eccentric offerings I ate up during the Halloween season, to fit in as a man. Even at the time, it felt haphazard. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it wasn’t genuine, especially as I attempted to bond and fit in with the cis men in my life and continually came out feeling, “Damn, I really cannot relate to you,” without being able to name specifically, “Well, I’m not a cis man,” until years later.

Cue graduation, struggling through a number of post-college jobs, and exasperated alcoholism leading to my personal “rock bottom” in July 2018. After about a half year of sobriety, I started to notice a shift in the way I was naturally expressing myself and the way I talked about myself and my gender, to others and to myself.

I gradually began shedding the muted, lobotomized articles of clothing from my confused teenage and early-20s self. I realized I had a ton of fun focusing on color palettes and patterns, eyes widening as soon as I see something that would fit with other clothes I already had. Over time, I also saw that my style found its own sort of binary. 

In addition to all of the bright pastels, vibrant patterns, darling vintage finds, and cartoonish screenprints, I find balance in nurturing my inner 2000s emo kid. I’ve got multiple pairs of Tripp bottoms (kilt and pants)—complete with chains and straps—along with a collection of Halloween- and horror-themed t-shirts and any number of items that could be worn at an industrial rave, or maybe by a different version of my teenage self.

I was always reluctant to embrace both of these parts of myself until I had the capacity to actually explore my identity and my gender, unhindered by my alcoholism and lack of self-actualization. As a teenager, I was part of the alternative, queer, Hot Topic-attending crew of outcasts, but I was never quite confident enough to embrace that aesthetic in the way some of my peers did. Similarly, I found that I wanted to embrace softer fashion, really amp up the femme and queer factor, but plainly, I was scared.

As I type this, I’ve got a bit of a blend happening: I’m wearing a pastel pink Barbie crop top with black and neon green Tripp pants, zipped off into shorts, and a backward ball cap. This outfit, and my fashion in general today, is admittedly silly, the same word I often used to characterize the Halloween costumes I found such immense comfort in, and I love it! 

I feel like myself today. I’ve given myself permission to branch out, to shop in the women’s sections of stores no matter what eyes may or may not be on me as I do it, to dress how I want and in a way that makes me feel affirmed, even though my tastes shift on a near-daily basis.

I haven’t felt the need to capitalize off a single night of euphoria just to revert back into my ill-fitting, everyday costume in years. I can experience that same feeling regularly by wearing what I want, whenever I want.

So, maybe I’ll try my hand at something spooky again this year…