Halloween was much easier when C.J. was small and I got to select his costume without his input. That was back when he was a baby and toddler before I learned that he is gender dysphoric, which is the medical diagnosis for C.J. being, as he describes himself, “a boy who only likes girl stuff and wants to be treated like a girl.”

For his first Halloween, he was six months old and dressed as a plush monkey with a banana peel on his head as his squishy cheeks forced their happy way out of the costume’s face hole. When he was 18 months old, he was a cherubic Robin Hood in a green velour costume and fringed Minnetonka moccasin booties. Auburn curls flipped out from under a green hat with a red feather.

At two and a half years old, he was a police officer like his father, his hero. We visited daddy at work on Halloween day and I took pictures of my two redheads in uniform. I recently found those pictures and my eyes zeroed in on the small Halloween-themed Polly Pocket doll in C.J.’s pudgy fist. It’s one of the first photos we have showing the early hints that he is gender nonconforming, gender variant, gender fluid, gender creative or whatever term you prefer.

Shortly before that, I found a Barbie while cleaning out my closet. C.J. begged to have her and I reluctantly gave in. C.J. says that is the instant when he knew that he liked girl stuff, not boy stuff. We spent the better part of 12 months hoping that our son’s effeminacy was just a phase, even as it became apparent that it was as much a part of him as his right-handedness and love for strawberries.

In September halfway through his third year, C.J. informed us matter-of-factly that he was going to be Snow White for Halloween. I panicked. What would people think and say? How would people respond? Though we were tempted to, we would not let our boy dress as a girl for all to see—not even on the one night of the year reserved for fantasy, role-play and costumes.

I spent weeks trying to come up with a costume option for C.J. that was a compromise. He wanted to wear makeup and fabric that felt nice. I sat him on my lap in front of the computer and went to a popular website for Halloween costumes. I clicked on the “Boys’ Costumes” section of the site and tricked C.J. into thinking that those costumes were his only options. I was hiding half of the world—the pink world—from him and I felt guilty about it, but it also felt like something that I had to do to protect my son from what other people and to keep the holiday as drama-free as possible. I realize now that I was parenting based on what would make strangers feel happy and comfortable, not on what would make my child happy and comfortable. I don’t parent that way anymore. I wish that I never did.