Our favourite Halloween costumes
we went as each other then, we've come out as trans since
It was the first Halloween either of our kids had in a classroom and it was kind of exciting to get to dress up, hang out with the kids, and read stories to them and see their excitement for going out to trick or treat later that night. Kindergarten classrooms are mayhem at the best of times, and candy day would be no exception. We hoped our parent and kid costume would make the noise even louder.
Neither my kid nor I wanted to dress in simple costumes, we wanted to make the most of our time together in the classroom. It was cool to bring your parent into class and have them be there with your friends DURING THE SCHOOLDAY. I was also excited that I was doing this DURING THE WORKDAY. So we decided we’d be each other. They would dress as me and I would dress as them.
Which led us to this absolutely perfect moment in time…
In those years I was absolutely obsessed with suspenders and my beard. Their costume ate (my youngest kid will be so angry if she finds out I used this term publicly) when it came to capturing my essence. Did they wear pajamas all the time? Probably not. Nor did I get their hair completely right, but that was his favourite Grover as you can see from the worn fuzz, and I think I found a long one-piece that suited me.
The twist…
Ten years later, both of us have come out as trans and this picture feels like one of the best pictures and the moment we dressed up as one another as one of the best Halloween moments we ever shared (it did then too but for cool bonding reasons then). There is no dad! There is no daughter! poof!
Now, believe it or not, it was not our costumes that turned us trans. It was not November 1 when we woke up and realized something about us was different. We did not wake up and begin to transition in any way, it was just a fun day for us then, and a fun day to look back on now and think “huh, would you look at that, had we only known where we’d be years from now.”
The really cool thing about always having conversations with your kids about gender and gender expression as they grow up is that things like this can happen. We never had any single day where we woke up and knew what was happening with our brains or bodies. Everything kind of happened over time and with reflection and conversation. Now we get to look back at these things we did together and reflect on how cool it was to have done all of it together, even at the young ages we were then.
You don’t have to be scared that you or your child might be trans, you don’t have to worry that you or your child might be queer. It is far scarier, to me, to think that by missing out on talking to them, they might not know who they are at all. I promise that is a far more lonely feeling to have as a child.
Halloween is a fun time to play around with things you’ve always wanted to try. Want to try wearing a dress in a less stressful environment? Give it a go on Halloween. But don’t do it jokingly or make jokes at the expense of the trans community if someone asks why you are doing it. You are allowed to try something just because you want to. Wearing something just means you are wearing something, it does not change who you are in any way.
“Are you wearing a dress as part of your costume dude?”
“Uhhhh, yeah man.”
“Anything you want to tell us bro?”
“Uhhhh, it’s Halloween, this is my dress costume, it feels great. Look how my tattoos look in this.”
We still talk about this costume today even if it wasn’t the most elaborate or the scariest or even if we had to explain to people what our concept was when we were going door-to-door trick or treating that night. For us, it was just kind of neat to bond together, something that is more important than anything else when you’re trying to parent young kids who feel like they can tell you things and express themselves comfortably.
I can’t wait to see what everyone does with their costume this year.