For Halloween this year my girlfriend and I decided to go as Shaggy and Velma. While looking for clothes in a thrift store, my girlfriend started playing with the idea of going as a sexy Velma. Going along with it I suggested I go as a sexy Shaggy as well.
I began talking about how I would cut off the pants I had found into short shorts and cut the shirt into a midriff, intending a satire of sexy costumes for women. Immediately my girlfriend started correcting my ideas, telling me that I should get a nice button up and pants to look like Shaggy if Fred had fixed him up. I tried making another joke by asking “But doesn’t more skin equal sexy?” and was again corrected by my girlfriend that sexy for guys is different. I was stood there in minor shock that my girlfriend seemed to completely gloss over the nature of what I was describing and instead focused on the two of us fitting the appropriate gender roles of our sexy costumes. We haven’t talked about it since, having gone as appropriate levels of sexiness (read: not ‘sexy’ at all) for a Halloween themed family event we attended. However, we are planning on attending two more Halloween parties this weekend and I have yet to bring up again. Hopefully it turns out well, but I am afraid/curious of further gender policing that may occur at parties I attend if I continue with the sexy Shaggy costume idea.
Unruly Bodies 
This was an interesting read.
I think is important to think about how women also gender police men. I have been discussing this topic in my masculinity class and I think it is am important question to ask. Why is it that people have to fit into what is deemed appropriate for their gender? Why does it even matter? I think you should talk to her about it and see what she says. Perhaps she didn’t even realize she was gender policing you.
I think this is a really important concept to be unpacked if we are to create a world that doesn’t really stigmatize someone based on gender roles and how they perform them. Ideally women should be able to dress how they want, with as little or as much clothing as possible without being solely sexualized, while recognizing it’s okay to want to see that in oneself as a woman. Ideally men should be able to dress how they want with out being considered too flamboyant or too deviant from traditional, harmful, and constricting views of masculinity. Ultimately it’d be great if we were in a world where we see decent ratios of people expressing how they want, being as sexy as they personally see fit, for whatever that means to them. I think seeking out important transmasculine and transmale role models that freely express femininity and defy the constricting box of hegemonic masculinity has been really important for me as a transmasculine person that I don’t have to be hyper-masculine to be comfortable in my gender identity. It’s hopefully a healthier more critical take on experiencing masculinity and breaking down gendered barriers in my own life. I believe that unpacking masculinity and thinking critically about gender roles in society will help both cis and trans people and I hope that you find a way to do what’s most exciting and desirable for you to do this Halloween. Best of luck!!