And this chorus is EMPOWERING.  If my “lifestyle” isn’t a choice, nobody can be expected to change me.

This singular sentiment revokes the power of hundreds of arguments for homophobes and transphobes.

But,  it's also disenfranchising.

​Erin is the volunteer with the largest tenure here at RESCQU.NET because it allows her to keep connected with the LGBT+ community.  As a bi woman who is soon to be getting married to her future husband she feels deeply for the community and wants to keep that connection.  So she works to train our volunteers, welcome our new community members, and keep the wheels turning.

Ghosts and Goblins and Ghouls and Gender Bending Gays all around! 

Tomorrow kids will be knocking on your door, and most of the adults will be out to their own parties, dressed in a variety of different costumes from the sexy nurse, to Lumber-Jack Skellington (I'm disappointed the internet doesn't have a picture for that one).​

It should come as no surprise that a holiday about dressing up resulted in a few "drag" parties.  Cross-dressing is an irreverent, but accepted act on this most sacred of days for the LGBT+ community. 

In the 1950s-70s when being gay was outlawed, this allowed a kind of "acceptance" to bloom in gay bars and counter-cultural gathering places for the evening.  

Starting on the major coasts of the United States, many venues featured dress-up parties for the adults. For the closeted, invisible, gay clubs throughout the cities of San-Francisco, the out-and-proud, bold-and-beautiful drag scene which was often viewed as "a vaudeville stage show" got to shine proudly. 

This provided people a space.  A space to "negotiate" with the world around them and have a day where they could play with their genders and sexuality and have no recourse.  

This grew only more important in the 80's as the AIDS epidemic swept through.  

Halloween shifted at that time, from a holiday to play with your identity without stress, to a mardi-gras of sorts.  A day to cut loose, to be free, and to experience one's LGBT+ identity but also a day to remember the people who had been lost.  The people "who aren't at this party."

From that point forward, Halloween became synonymous with permission to be unabashedly gay.  Permission to be trans.  Permission to break the hard-and-fast societal rule loud and clear.  

Parties, Gay or straight, are fun.  Really fun.  And they look fun.  So they caught on. 

Moving into the late 80's and early 90s, American cultural festivities swept the nation and ran across seas.  According to CNN,  the British grocery store chain, Tesco's sales of pumpkins in 2005, was tripled by 2010, almost entirely because of British people picking up what was mostly a forgotten holiday until families saw Hocus Pocus and Nightmare Before Christmas.  

Popular culture - originally gay culture - created a holiday that adults could give their children.  It was fun, and most of all - it was consumable. It could sell. Now the holiday is celebrated worldwide in Japan, the UK, the middle east, Africa, everywhere.  

LGBTQ+ people the world over now "reap" the same benefits San Francisco did - identity negotiation.

On any ordinary day, the idea of a man in a dress, or a gender-swapped Dean Winchester is not well regarded at the local grocery store.

Going to a party at a conservative friend's home "looking like a Dyke" is dangerous.  For teenagers, cross-dressing or using makeup is reserved for females, and assuming identities beyond that of traditional society is so frowned upon that we require organizations to provide support under the radar, half-way houses and homeless shelters when it goes wrong, and suicide-lifelines specifically for those people who do not conform. 

But on Halloween, you're most conservative of the conservative friends are okay with it all.  You can go out in public "in drag" you can go out with barely any clothes on at all, you can party and grind on anyone you want, and you have somewhat of a "pass."  It's Halloween and therefore expected that you'll assume the identity of someone they believe you're not.  

To the LGBTQ+ community, Halloween is a sacred holiday because it observes the hidden identities we want to "try on" alongside our silly costume.  We want to be the sexy ass-less chaps cowboy or the naughty nurse - we're allowed.  

​And that....is freeing.  

Participating in this idea of changing who you are to "try on" an identity is called Identity Tourism and it's not reserved for Halloween. 

You can also do it online, safely, without your parents knowing.

Come visit our peer support group, "bittersweet" tonight (10/30/18) to discuss how! 

If you don't qualify or were late to the party, no worries! 

Or get ready to vote on november 6th with our voting toolkit! Why you may not vote and how to! 

Samantha is the Executive Director of RESCQU.NET, an online Community Manager, and full-stack marketer.  She launched Trans* Youth Channel in 2013 to record her transition and help other transgender people online transition safely.  She saw a need to protect people who weren't out yet, and transitioned the organization to make the site you see today.