Implementing Costume Agency for Children Experiencing Gender Dysphoria

Whether through the overt theatricality of donning a costume which allows a transformed embodiment of identity, or through the objective separation of identity using dolls, children find freedom to explore gender by way of dramatic performance.

I worked in children’s theatre for over twenty years and for twelve of those, I was the founder and executive director of South Shore School of Theatre in Quincy, Massachusetts. During all the years that I worked with children, there was a common theme: anticipation for the day they got their costumes. Many asked “what’s my costume?” and “when do I get my costume?” on the first day they showed up for class or rehearsal. This anticipation peaked at the costume parade.

This was not a mere “I don’t like my costume,” but an unvoiced “I cannot live in these clothes.”

Children fell somewhere on the scale between excited and disappointed. Because we had taught them to respect the costumers and not complain, they communicated their feelings through body language. At a certain point in my career, I became aware of a new body language communicating something I hadn’t heard before. (Not that it wasn’t always there and speaking, but I had not learned the translation yet.) It was a sort of swallowing up of the body and soul into itself. It looked like a desperate retreat from the textiles and a silhouette that communicated an exaggerated gendered identity, resulting in the loss of a corporeal form. What was left was a hanging of clothes begging to be removed from the bones rejecting them. This was not a mere “I don’t like my costume,” but an unvoiced “I cannot live in these clothes.”

During my time with the company (I left when COVID started for a new professional opportunity), I talked with the school director and artistic colleagues about how to create a culture of support for students experiencing gender dysphoria. While there, I witnessed three students who actively transitioned and one beginning to explore a nonbinary identity. We were in constant conversation with parents about their questions or needs. Although no one ever articulated that we could have done more to be supportive or proactive in helping their children explore gender identity, I could not help but wonder what our role might be in such a journey. Each of the children who transitioned demonstrated their extreme discomfort on the day of the costume parade. This day, however, felt late in the process of understanding that someone was not comfortable portraying a gender onstage even if they presented that way offstage.

At South Shore School of Theatre, we had always asked “are you willing to portray any role?” Most children—in fact, most actors—do not feel they can limit acting opportunities for fear of being seen as “difficult” or “egotistical.” Problematically, this question is also a yes/no question, not truly offering agency to the actor. We began asking “what roles are you open to playing?” While this offered more opportunity for voices to be heard, we found that most children do not have the support for naming a gendered role that does not match their presented one. I use “support” to mean an array of foundational pillars: language, self-awareness, family encouragement, peer encouragement, social and/or physical development. Further, the complexities wrapped up in speaking to an authority (casting director) about what roles one does not want to play are vast. Thus, even presenting the opportunity for such agency does not ensure children take it.

In my experience, children’s theatre costuming leans toward a more exaggerative nature, amplifying essential details about character. Most characters in children’s theatre present along a gender binary—even non-human characters are often written as gendered. Thus, most children are costumed with an overemphasized presentation of gender. For the child who feels they cannot articulate that they do not want to be cast as the gender they present as, theatre can lose the freedom of pretend and become more constraining than real life.

One day, during an unrelated activity, I brought a classic trunk of costumes, props, and accessories to a workshop. A male-presenting child’s eyes lit up over the permission to wear a dress for the day. In the dress, they came alive. This child has since begun identifying as nonbinary. I wondered about implementing this activity as a regular practice in our children’s theatre. What if kids were given the opportunity to choose their own costumes? What if trunks of costumes and accessories were at the ready all the time? What if playing dress-up were a regular part of theatre classes? Kids want to get their costumes right away. They want to escape to pretend, to make the make-believe legitimate through costumes, hair, makeup, set design. If this is where they are anyway, why not let costuming be what they engage with from the beginning? What might this do for kids questioning their gender identities?

I suggested to the school director that we offer the Junior Acting Class (children ages seven to nine) the opportunity to play dress-up upon entering the classroom each week. My question was, could we use the trunk to create a culture supportive of gender exploration? Could children don a costume weekly for their hour of class and over time neutralize gender biases or celebrate someone’s choice to identify as a gender different than the one they present as?

Although I left the company before I could be a part of this implementation, Allison Tucker, the school director then and now executive director, sat down with me to share what has come up through this experiment since she implemented it in 2021.

Allison Tucker: When COVID hit, we had to restructure how classes were going to run altogether, so we didn’t start off with things the way we had planned. I mean, we didn’t make it a weekly thing, telling the kids, “Each week when you come in, feel free to put anything on that you want.” But the trunk was there for specific activities, and magically, it became something the kids ended up wanting to do themselves by the middle of the semester.

Tara: Like the kids came up with the idea that we had to dress up in costumes for class? Did you encourage them to do this or help them get there somehow?

Allison: No, we weren’t thinking about getting there because COVID was keeping us constantly navigating what we were allowed to do. But I think the trunk being present and the introduction of its possibilities made the difference. So, you know, it’s not a new thing in acting class to have a trunk of costumes and tell kids, “Grab what you want for this game and you’ll use it to create a character.” But I had the trunk there and ready and the kids knew what was in it. When the day came up to put on a costume, the kids had already been ready for it. I don’t know, it removed the pressure somehow from suddenly having to experiment. I think that was important—the removal of pressure.

Then after a couple of class sessions of these structured activities the kids were like, “Hey, can we just wear things for the fun of it?” So they did. The next week, they came in and asked right away, “Do we get to wear costumes just for fun today?” And then it wasn’t even a question. They just came in putting things on.

Tara: That’s so fascinating, that the kids got the idea to do this on their own.

Allison: I know! And I think because it came from the kids themselves, they felt more empowered than if we had gone with our original idea and told them that this was what we wanted them to do. Like maybe we were right to think that just letting kids explore gender through costume choices having nothing to do with casting would be helpful.

I’ve made it a recent goal of mine to say “yes” to students unless I can come up with a logical reason that “no” is the right answer.

Tara: It seems like such a natural option. It makes me wonder if children request those things regularly, but because we as teachers might not be thinking along those lines, we don’t say yes.

Allison: Yeah, I think maybe it’s our own lesson plans and building blocks that get in the way or keep us from hearing what they’re asking of us.

Tara: Yeah, I just wonder. I’ve made it a recent goal of mine to say “yes” to students unless I can come up with a logical reason that “no” is the right answer. Anyway, after COVID’s regulations calmed down, did you continue the practice and what have you discovered about it?

Allison: Oh yeah, we still do it. A couple things feel key in the success of it. First, it’s essential to let the trunk be there all the time, from the first day. When the costume trunk becomes a special activity, like “once a month, you get to dress the way you want,” then there is a lot of anticipation around it that can either excite some kids or can cause anxiety for others. When it’s an option every class session, it removes some of this anticipation because we’ve normalized the creative play in this mode of expression. Kids also get bored of certain props and costumes so they aren’t building up the importance of wearing it like they might when it’s only a one-time activity.

Second, I realized it was important for me to play too and to treat it seriously. It’s usually considered really funny when anyone wears a costume that challenges gender. But I didn’t lean into it being funny when it came to gender. I intentionally dressed in a way that disrupted my own presenting cis female gender or dressed in a way that had no distinctive gender, and then I acted like it was the most serious thing and I wanted to be treated seriously. So, I came in dressed with what presented as man’s pants, suspenders, tie, suit coat, hat—stuff they might consider silly, but I did not act like a different person or gender. I was “Roger, the Schoolman.” I intentionally chose a different gender in my name, but did not change my voice or my walk. I didn’t make myself a caricature. And doing things like this has helped students know that gender in name doesn’t mean you have to change who you are. It also means if a peer dresses a way that doesn’t match a presenting gender, this can be taken seriously. A presenting boy wearing a dress doesn’t have to be funny. A presenting girl wearing a knight’s costume doesn’t have to be odd.

Tara: So you were modeling gender disruption in a way?

Allison: Yes, if the teacher dresses in a way that upends the kids’ perceptions of gender, even that there is such a thing as gender—like, I might dress in a clown costume and say “I’m not a boy or girl”—they’ll learn that they don’t have to be ruled by gender codes and they don’t hold others to a gender code either.

Tara: I remember during the last couple of years I was there, one child was exploring gender identity. They looked so sad during a costume parade when they had to wear a male chef’s apron and I thought, “here’s a costume item that doesn’t have to be fitted to the body. What kind of apron would make this kid happy?” I took this male-presenting student back to the costume rack and said, “If you could choose your own apron to wear, what you would want to wear?” They pulled down an apron with a frill, much more female-presenting. It did not change their character and made them more confident. Have you noticed the practice of choosing their own costumes in class affecting their ability to articulate what they need to a costumer for a show?

Allison: As you know, our teens are the costumers for the younger kids’ shows and since we’ve modeled how to let kids communicate their comfort level with costuming without it being received as a sign of disrespect, they’ve been excited when they feel they’ve been a part of a child’s empowerment to say, “I really don’t want to wear a skirt.” So, in that way, I think the practice has affected all our students, not just the ones wearing the costumes.

What has felt pretty altering is the outcome of language. The use of creative play outside a structured activity has given kids the chance to practice using language that lets them communicate what they are comfortable wearing. This has dramatically helped the scenario we used to run into during the costume parades when a child melted down in the fitting room before even making it to the stage.

Tara: I love that! Finally, have there been any surprises that have come from the practice?

The power of theatre: anyone can wear anything.

Allison: One surprise is kids donating their own pieces to the trunk. Like one child came in during one class saying, “Can I give this dress to the trunk?” or “I brought this blanket in for the trunk. I want someone else to use it.” And they’d be like “Anyone can wear it!” They’d announce it to the class, “Anyone is welcome!” The “anyone” really spoke to me. There was no gender assigned even in the kids’ minds to the costume or prop. It was for anyone. The actor trunk feels symbolic in that way: there’s no “girls’ trunk” and “boys’ trunk.” There’s just an actors’ trunk.

Tara: The power of theatre: anyone can wear anything.