Found Photos: Four Suits, One Night
Phantom histories and the queer magic of dressing like yourself
How do you write about strangers in photos? People you’ve never met? People who are likely no longer with us? Like many things, I’m sure there’s a right and a wrong way to write about an unknown person’s gender, their clothes, relationships. What they chose to show the viewer through the snap of a shutter and how to process that info and regurgitate it back into the world as a transsexual man in 2025.
As a collector of other people’s photos, I give myself permission to wonder. To perceive. To be curious, like the little freak that I am, about the blandest moments of their day to the most intimate ones that happen when the camera is stored away.
I’ll never know the truth behind most of the photos I collect and write about, and I’m okay with that. Because sometimes, beyond the photo paper type or the fashion that helps me place it in time, there are no clues. Just a feeling. A look between subjects. And for me, that’s enough to dive in and simply consider.
Remember in high school when you went to the mall with your bestie and two of your best friend’s besties? The ones who made you feel like the fourth wheel? And once you got there, you immediately wandered over to the photo kiosk just to pose for a semi-out-of-focus, laminated keychain photo you’d clip to your JanSport backpack?
It was the 90s, so the photo was in oversaturated color and a bit pixelated. And if you were anything like me, you felt like a Frankensteined lump next to your cis friends — salivating over the oversized skater fashion of the boys, while feeling like a monster with inherited muscular legs while standing next to the girls.
Bodies smashed together for the camera. You were the one who always blinked. It was a nervous tic. But you clipped that photo to your backpack anyway, proud to show you had friends.
That’s what this fey foursome in suits reminds me of. Not because that youthful, masc-in-suits vibe was my reality as a sweet young thing — but because it wasn’t.
High school set the bar pretty low for what life could offer, but I’m still glad I over-documented my teen years. It’s a stressful, triggering delight to stroll down my version of memory lane— flipping through stacks of printed, saturated color photos featuring fashion crimes, skin disasters, haircuts that are now back in style, and deep nostalgia. Those snapshots are proof that one version of me existed and survived.
So when I first saw these black-and-white photos from the 1940s in an online auction, I wondered what they were up to. Which one was the flirt? Who was the shy one? Who always blinked? Who was the fourth wheel?
The small 4 x 3 inch prints arrived in a stamped envelope from a photo reseller in Pennsylvania, sandwiched between cardboard, sealed in a plastic sleeve. On top of the plastic sleeve was sticker of a cartoon bouquet of roses with curly script that read “Thank You for Your Purchase!” You’re so welcome, I thought.
The back of each photo? Blank. No names, no dates, no locations. No poetry written for a secret pal.
Just four butches in boxy suits with slicked hair. Frozen in time. Delighted. A little blurry. Shoulder to shoulder, hands resting on thighs, smushed tight, chins cocked just so — daring the lens to blink first.
Or… what if… let’s back this up and try again.
Just four trans mascs on their way to steal your girl at the dance.
Or… a little of column A, a little of column B.
Who took the picture? A fifth in a suit? A mom with a camera, rolling her eyes but secretly proud? They look young. High school? College? Hard to tell with that ageless queer glow. Throw a suit on a baby face and you somehow look even younger.
It’s broad daylight in the photos. The foursome are confident, proud — radiant, even. You can feel it: that shimmer of being fully in your body, in sync with your friends, in on the joke. But I wonder if, behind their smiles, they were already thinking ahead — imagining what their outfits might provoke once they stepped past the safety of that driveway.
In 1940s America, the so-called “three-article rule” was in effect in many places — a loose, unofficial law used to harass queer and trans people, stating that you had to wear at least three pieces of clothing that matched your assigned sex, or risk arrest. Unless you were in full drag for a military-sanctioned performance to lift the boys’ spirits — which, of course, was allowed — “cross-dressing” could get you booked.
I picture the neighbors, peeking through the curtains, whispering behind hands, clutching imaginary pearls. The gossip train ran express that afternoon, no transfers!
I like to think our foursome was getting ready for A Night. The kind whispered about at the diner counter over melted milkshakes and lipstick-smudged straws. They were headed to their version of a speakeasy. Or the back room of a bowling alley rented out just for them and their friends. Someone’s cousin knew a manager who looked the other way.
There was music. A scratchy record, making everyone sway. One of them slow-danced with a girl in a feathered headband that was featherless and destroyed by midnight but she didn’t mind, because it was itchy anyway. Two of them smoked cigarettes and played poker with the other suits and a dental hygienist, if that was a career path in the 1940s. The last one got kissed in the stairwell. Probably the one who said, “I love you guys but now it’s time to take a photo of me solo for my girl.”
Or maybe they were getting ready for A Day. Something simpler. Far more sanctioned. But not any less queer. Gender-swap day was a thing at schools — a theme day that allowed students to dress like a boy or a girl – which ever one you are not supposed to dress like or whatever. A silly little spirit week to the teachers, but to our four friends? It was the day they waited for all year. The day the rules cracked just enough. The day the disguise was the reveal.
They’d borrowed those suits. Or stolen them. Or tailored them out of hand-me-downs. Brushed lint off each other’s shoulders in the mirror. Practiced tough-guy faces and bashful grins. Made silent promises never to marry men – unless it was each other.
Suits on, camera out, they walked taller. Laughed louder.
You can see it in the photo.
The photos are an entrance. A declaration. A moment I wish I’d tried on for size when I was younger — but I never pushed the boundaries quite enough. But also? I didn't have access to a suit and never bothered to look for one. They seemed a little… intense. Intimidating.
Our four friends went back to factory jobs or school desks the next day. But for a moment, they were legends. Queer glamour in grayscale. Untouchable!
Maybe they didn’t carry a keychain clipped to their backpack — but this was their version. Photo prints picked up at the drugstore and quickly tucked into an old cigar box.
It was a night. Or a day. It is a life to remember.
Do you have an inkling of where this photo was taken, or who these fine folks are? I’d love to hear from you.
These four are now legends to me too! The joy in their faces is the best ❤️.