Welcome to #TransTuesday! It’s that time of year again, of spooky spoops and costumes and candy. We’re gonna talk about TRANS HALLOWEEN, but what it’s really about is THE FEAR OF EMBRACING YOUR TRUE SELF WHEN YOUR ENTIRE LIFE IS A COSTUME.
Halloween was always a weird time for me. I love the holiday and the autumn (such as it is in Los Angeles) and the spooky stuff, and I love costumes. But there’s a caveat with that last one.
Because I also didn’t love them, and I never knew why. As a kid you (probably) love Halloween because people give you candy and you get to dress up as a monster or something scary or, as it’s now mostly morphed to, a character you love from popular media.
And there was certainly always media I loved. I don’t remember most of my costumes from childhood, sadly. And I have almost no photos of my life before I moved out to live on my own, so it’s not like I can go back and look.
I know I was Spider-Man one year. Another I was a ghost, the awful kind that’s just a sheet with eye holes cut in it. I always saw that in cartoons or comics and thought it must be fun since it appeared all the time. SPOILERS: it is not. It is in fact very bad (but easy to draw!).
The best costumes I ever had were Calvin (I even had a little stuffed Hobbes, though not as cool as the one Susan made for me last year), and Wakko Warner. I won a $75 prize from my local comic shop for that last one. It ruled. You’ll have to trust me (again, I have no photos).
I don’t know how familiar you are with Animaniacs, but the characters have black bodies and white faces, in that old-timey cartoon style. The black I handled with a simple black sweatsuit, and I had cartoony gloves from Disney World that worked great.
And I made the hat and the ears and tail and even feet. But I didn’t do anything to my face, which probably made it look incomplete (but I still won a prize for it, so who knows), and you’re probably wondering why I’d go to all that trouble and not complete it.
It’s because I was TERRIFIED to put makeup on. This is also partly what kept me as part of the tech crew in my high school drama club, rather than branching out and trying acting.
Feeling like I didn’t fit in my own body definitely made me hate being seen by people, so going on stage wasn’t a choice I made willingly. Then they’d all be LOOKING at me but not SEEING me, just seeing the shell of a boy costume I was wearing. And that was UNGOOD.
But in all honestly I was just as scared of having to put makeup on, which of course even high school actors need under all the lights in a stage play. I was just as terrified of any kind of hair dye, even including the temporary stuff that washes out.
Even the baby powder they’d put in a kid’s hair to make it look gray if they were playing an older character made me nope right out. I never, ever examined why this was, I just thought it wasn’t something I was interested in. Ha ha ha, it is to laugh.
As an adult I would try not to let Susan kiss me when she had lipstick (or even lip balm!) on, because some would invariably get on me, and it provided the EXACT feeling of fear I’ve been talking about. I couldn’t handle it! I had to get it off! NOW! AUGH! It made me panic.
Brief aside, I felt that panic and fear for so long that just remembering it and writing about it above makes me feel it all over again… even now after self-accepting and transitioning and liking and wearing lipstick all the time. I’m wearing it RIGHT NOW. It’s bonkers.
Anyway the lipstick fear was exactly the same with Halloween and costumes, where I never put any kind of makeup or hair dye on for ANYTHING. It was just NOT AN OPTION, no matter how much better it would have made my costume.
Looking back at all of it now, I can clearly identify it as fear. And it was INTENSE fear, the kind that if I felt I were going to be forced into one of those things I would have uttered a horrid quick excuse and RAN AWAY and never gone back.
Which seems kind of severe, until you realize I wasn’t afraid to do/wear/have those things, I was afraid I would LIKE it. And then what would that say about me? Therein lies the problem.
In high school in my podunk midwestern town, I still didn’t know that “transgender” was a thing people could be, much less what it meant. Boys who dyed their hair and wore makeup? Well we were told those were GAY and to be SHUNNED (even though I thought shunning was bullshit).
But! I wasn’t at all worried that if I liked the hair dye or makeup it would mean I was gay. Because I knew I wasn’t. Ladies ladies ladies, they’re the ones for me.
So if I liked wearing makeup, but I wasn’t gay, what the hell would that mean? In my ignorant, inexperienced, uneducated (in the ways of gender beyond the narrow societal binary) mind… something would have to be wrong with me.
Seriously wrong.
Because those were the only options ever presented to me. You liked makeup? You’re a woman, or a gay man, end of story. That’s it. It’s the horrid FALSE DICHOTOMY of our society rearing its head again. I did a Trans Tuesday all about it:
But just as much as the fear of what it would mean if I liked those things that were Not For Boys, I felt the fear of having to pretend to be someone else. Because you have to understand I was pretending to be someone else EVERY WAKING MOMENT OF MY LIFE.
That’s what being trans and not knowing it (or having to BOYMODE/GIRLMODE) is: acting the part of the cis person you were told you are and had no choice but to pretend to be.
And it’s not just that you don’t know how, or want to, but it REPULSES you on an atomic level. It HURTS. So the thought of dropping that facade, to replace it with another (like a character in a play), seemed… insurmountable. And uncomfortable.
Because I didn’t know how you’d adopt a fake persona on TOP of the fake persona you were already constantly stressed and worried about and had to wear for every damned moment of your entire damned life.
Which meant you’d have to DROP the original fake persona. Ideally a good thing, but it was also all I had. I’d be open. Exposed. More vulnerable and out as myself to the world, in acting the part of a character in a play, than I would be as “myself.” Does that make sense?
But unlike acting in a play, Halloween didn’t come with the “persona problem,” because everyone knew you weren’t who you were dressed up as. Nobody expected you to act like that character. You were just… you, in a costume.
That I could (mostly) do and enjoy. And my favorite part about it were masks.
I mean, how much more obvious could it be, right? Are you laughing? It’s okay. I am too. How trite! If this were a script I’d be working on a rewrite right now.
In a mask I didn’t have to pretend to be the boy people thought I was. I didn’t have to pretend to be anything. Masks were a shield. They protected me, kept me wrapped up safe inside, hid the true me from the world (and myself).
And would you believe this carried over into other parts of my life in ways I didn’t realize? It really does creep in all over when the true you is forcefully hidden from you for your entire life. Tying right in with Halloween and makeup and masks… are the toys I had as a kid.
As a (seeming) boy, the only toys I was really allowed were action figures. I had them for all sorts of cartoons and tv shows and movies I loved. And I still dig action figures even though they’re just small dolls, and yes it’s okay to say that. Get over yourself, dudes.
Screw the stupid gender binary, let kids play with what they want. ANYWAY, my favorites were always any character that came with a removable helmet or mask. I’d put it on them, take it off, put it back on.
I’d pretend while they had it on none of the other characters knew who they were. They’d later take it off and reveal their true identity and everyone would be surprised. LOOK I SAID IT WAS REALLY OBVIOUS ONCE I NOTICED IT, OKAY?
It was only in the years I spent examining myself and my life and trying to figure this out that I realized my affinity for masks and helmets tied into the feeling of safety they gave me.
And taking a mask or helmet off an action figure to reveal their true selves was pure subconscious wish fulfillment. I wanted to be able to do that to the people I cared about, but I also wanted to be able to do that to MYSELF.
But I couldn’t. Not in the environment I was in, and not for a long time after until I undid all the damage and anti-trans brainwashing society had done to me.
There’s also a sadness that comes with thinking of past Halloweens, especially in high school… because it was somewhat regular for some of the jocks to come to school in terrible wigs and their mom’s dresses.
That was, of course, played for laughs. Oh ho ho, you see they’re MEN but they’re dressed like WOMEN and it’s that SILLY because it’s so BAD AND WRONG.
Homophobia and transphobia are of course baked right into that. It’s terrible. AND YET.
I felt pangs in my chest. I didn’t want to look like THAT, I didn’t want to make fun of people, but at the same time… they got to wear dresses all day long, and nobody made fun of them for it.
And my god, what must that be like?
Younger me was… well, this is going to sound very self-aggrandizing, but I’m going to go ahead and aggrandize myself (it’s my thread and you can’t stop me). That kid was ALWAYS incredibly self-reflective, often to her own detriment.
Except in this area, because I had been so blinded to even the hint of the possibility of transgender people not only existing, but that it’s totally fine and normal and acceptable for us to exist.
So I never examined WHY I felt that way about burly football players stuffed into too-small dresses, lumbering down the school halls. I just figured it’s because I was… weird. I’ve always been weird. I’ll always be weird.
Guess that’s just part of it! Huh. Yep, makes sense. No need to examine that any further, you weirdo! Glad we settled that. AND SHE HOPED TO NEVER THINK ABOUT IT AGAIN.
I wish I’d grown up in a supportive environment where I’d have been encouraged to explore that side of myself, through Halloween, through the drama club, through all the untold stories and adventures I put my action figures through.
I’m sure the latter is a big part of what made me a writer. I was always creating stories for my toys to play out. If only I’d been able to imagine a story half as good for myself sooner than I did.
But we all go at our own pace, which is all we can do. Just… don’t run from what scares you.
One of the first things I did after being sure I was transgender but not knowing if I would transition was… book an appointment with a Hollywood makeup artist who specializes in makeovers for trans women.
I’d not talked to a doctor yet, not begun transitioning in any way. Nobody knew but Susan. And it took me MONTHS to work up the courage to do it, because that fear still remained. And now that I knew WHY I was scared, it made me even more scared.
But I had to know. I had to go and have her put makeup on me and see how it looked. And I did. And if you were ever wondering what this post was about…
A tweet I made at 1:09 pm on March 10, 2020: Today I did something I’d be terrified to do for most of my life (I can’t tell you what it is, but it’s not dangerous so do not worry). And all I can tell you is that we only live once and if you’re wondering if you should do that thing that scares you? Fuck yes. Go do it. [purple heart emoji]
I let her do whatever she wanted, because I had no idea what I liked or what I’d want. I was there for about three hours. The first time I looked in the mirror when she was done was… amazing and heartbreaking all at once. It was so great. And it HURT SO MUCH.
Because I knew. Even though the colors/style she used aren’t something I’d choose for myself now, I knew. I knew I knew I knew. That was ME. It was the first time I ever saw even a hint of ME (as close as was possible at the time). I almost cried.
Which of course was exhilarating! But it also meant… my entire life was going to change, because I HAD to transition. And it meant so much of my life, trapped in the wrong body with gender dysphoria, could have been so different.
I don’t know what it would be like to dress up for Halloween now. I’ve never had a WOMEN’S costume for it before. I’ve never had just ONE costume I WANTED to wear. I think it might be SUPER DAMN GREAT?? But I never get invited to Halloween parties so I have no reason to get one.
Dressing up in a costume and then sitting at home doing nothing would be too sad to deal with. But maybe someday! If someone invites me to one. Is this a hint YES OF COURSE THIS IS A HINT. But back to the point:
Don’t run from fear. Find the courage, no matter how long it takes. You can do it.
Embrace it. Run toward it. Experience that fear and see what you learn about yourself when you come out the other side. It might just be a revelation.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com