Bunny Rabbit – You’re genderless.
No blue, no pink, just a soft, white fur ball with floppy ears atop your head. There’s no doubt the nurse decided at the hospital. Clicked her pen and checked the F box instead of the M. But how could you know? All you know is mushy foods and face drool, your mom’s arms and crying in car seats. Someday, in a home video, you’ll hear everyone saying “pretty girl” as you giggle, toothless, the weight of your diaper resting on your cottontail. “She’s so cute.” But for now, you can’t understand language, so words can’t control you. Doesn’t it feel good to be unaware? Doesn’t it feel good to be an animal? Just a living being, not yet able to understand everyone’s expectations of you?
Glinda the Good Witch – You’re a good girl.
Your grandmother is a seamstress, so she makes you an unimaginably puffy pink dress with layers and layers of tulle. You wear a sparkling tiara from her bridal shop. It sits upon your long, curly blonde hair—your country’s symbol for girlhood, for innocence. In the foot parade around the perimeter of the parking lot at your Catholic school, everyone is smiling at you and snapping pictures on their disposable cameras, so you wave and smile back, like good girls do. It makes everyone happy to see you this way, so dainty and polite. And if they’re happy, why shouldn’t you be?
Pocahontas – You’re a 90’s tomboy.
You’re over the frills. Your collection of Disney VHS tapes is growing, but you don’t want to be Cinderella with her delicate glass slippers. You don’t want to be Sleeping Beauty with her pink dress and boring curse. You want to be a warrior, completely oblivious to cultural appropriation. You want the hidden pine trails of the forest and the colors of the wind and the independence. A black wig, braided at the sides covers up the blonde curls. Sure, there are still no pants, but at least this dress is for function, not fashion. You’re grumpy in every picture, your arms folded across your chest in an exaggerated pout. But isn’t there power in anger?
Frankenstein – You’re a girl who wants to be a boy.
Your mom loves you, so she helps you put the costume together. Dark baggy pants, your dad’s dark brown jacket with the sleeves rolled up, a green block-shaped mask that covers your whole head and smells like rubber. You hide any hints of your actual skin, green rubber costume gloves disguising your hands, making them three sizes too big for your little body. Mom never questions the choice, just embraces the creativity, even when the other parents stand in the grass during the parade pointing out the fake bolts in your neck, saying “wow, look at him!” You hear them too, but their perception doesn’t bother you. Much like the monster himself, you’ve come alive.
Wizard – You’re nonbinary.
Of course, you’re like eight, so you don’t know what that means yet. But you’re neither a girl, nor a boy. You’re magic. No one can judge your royal blue cape, decorated with shiny silver stars and crescent moons or your matching pointy hat. No one can say it’s too girly or too boyish. You’ve just been recommended for the school’s gifted and talented program because of the stories you write—the ones with talking fish and magical crayons. Your imagination is running wild and you have no intention to stop it. With your black wand in one hand and your candy bag in the other, you could conquer the world.
Skeleton – You’re a boy.
But only you know it. And only inside the comfort of your all-black jumpsuit with rubber bones built into the front. No one knows the kid behind the scary mask. “Who is that?” your classmates ask each other, bringing their faces close to yours, trying to identify you through the mesh eye holes. But you don’t offer an answer. You don’t say your name. You stand there silently, breathing candy breath into your mask until your face gets damp. Your best friends are cheerleaders, witches, fairies. But you’re just a structure of a person, an outline of a body, quiet and haunted.
No Costume – You’re a pre-teen girl.
You’ve no time for silly masks or wigs. And besides, you had to trade in your swishy Adidas pants from the boy’s section for pink Aeropostale t-shirts, so in a way, it already feels like you’re wearing a costume every day. You still go trick-or-treating, but you can’t chew the Laffy Taffies or suck on the Jolly Ranchers; everything gets stuck in your braces. You get your period, but you don’t tell anyone. You get a boyfriend, but you don’t want to kiss him. No one understands you, everyone calls you moody, and at the end of every fall day, all you want to do is lace up your dirty Etnies and skateboard up and down your street, coasting with the wind in your unkempt, shoulder-length hair.
J-Woww from The Jersey Shore – You’re a woman.
Well, not quite. You’re a teenager with the body of a woman and MTV shows you how women should dress. So you don a skin-tight leopard print dress from the Joyce Leslie going out of business in the mall. It shows off your long legs and accentuates your ass. You find a long, black wig at Spirit Halloween with a signature Jersey Shore poof at the top and sunglasses that cover half of your face. In your friend’s basement, you really get into character, doing shots of cheap liquor and fist pumping to club remixes. You pose for pictures, arm in arm with your Pauly D. It’s a performance and everyone eats it up. In order to feel comfortable in the dress, you have to really fulfill the role—you can’t be you.
Sexy Where’s Waldo – You’re confused.
You don’t know who you want to be, let alone who you want to be for Halloween. At the last minute, you buy the red and white striped shirt and cut it straight across, a makeshift crop top. You put on your shortest white shorts, pull the Waldo beanie over your perfectly straightened hair, and slide a pair of thick rimmed glasses over your face. You visit your friend at college and shiver in the nighttime October air walking across campus to a party. “I found you!” a random frat boy yells out. For a moment, you bask in this guy’s attention on you and hope your friends notice it too. Then you realize he’s just making a bad pun about your costume. You have no fun at the party. You’re uncomfortable having so much of your legs bare, your stomach naked. You want nothing more than to blend into a crowd and never be found.
Sexy Referee – You’re performing “female”.
Tight silky shirt covered in vertical black stripes. A deep V-neck baring cleavage. A short, black skirt that makes your booty pop. A whistle resting between your soft lips and begging to be blown. It’s one of the last parties you’ll throw at your parents’ house. Crowded around the dining room table, throwing ping pong balls into red solo cups, the guys compliment your outfit. But is this all it will ever be? Seeking the approval of every man in the room to give you some sense of confidence? You’ll feel better years later when your wife recalls seeing you in that costume and being turned on, even though you were only friends then. At least in that case your performance was for a woman.
Leonardo DiCaprio as Romeo – You’re androgynous.
You’ve loved Leo all your life, you just never knew how bad you wanted to be him. There’s no party to attend, but you and your wife get dressed up anyway and take pictures for social media. You fit yourself in black jeans, black shoes, and a half-buttoned Hawaiian print shirt. Now that your hair is short like you’ve always wanted it, you gel a straggly piece to dangle in front of your forehead. A fake bloody cut rests on your cheek. You buy a fake gun from the “weapons” aisle at the Halloween store and slide its barrel into the front of your waistband. You look good with that cigarette between your lips. You look like someone might call you “they” rather than “she.” And though you’d like that, you’ll never say it. It’s less scary to claim androgyny as a style than nonbinary as a gender. Still, it feels good to return to resisting the standards laid out for you. You smile scrolling the hundreds of selfies you took and bask in the glory of Instagram likes. “I defy you, stars!” you recite dramatically, over and over. You will not be fortune’s fool.
Jackie Domenus is a queer writer and educator from New Jersey. A graduate of the 2021 Tin House Winter Workshop, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Entropy, Watershed Review, Hooligan Mag, and elsewhere. She recently earned her MA in Writing at Rowan University. You can find her on Twitter @jackiedwrites.
Photo by Karolina Grabowska