Queerly Beloved: Gem Sheps

_DSC4416 The end of October is just a few days away, and with it comes the end of LGBTQ+ history month. What better way to celebrate than with a gay Halloween weekend?

The first night of Tracks Halloween starts this Thursday, Oct. 27, and if it’s anything like last year’s party, it’s going to be outrageous. This year, Tracks boasts a “secret special guest” from RuPaul’s Drag Race and a costume contest with a $500 prize.

Friday is Drag Nation: Hell on Heels, hosted by Nina Flowers and another $500 prize costume contest. Saturday is The Inferno, during which the club is transformed into a haunted house, featuring a light-show and another costume contest with a $2,000 prize and a $500 runner-up.

On Halloween, a rare Monday-night Tracks event, it seems like clubgoers will finally reach the seventh circle of hell, and have a $500 prize costume contest. Everyone is invited; dress up, get wild, and treat (or trick) yourself on a Monday night.

I don’t know where Tracks gets its funding to reward people for dressing up as sexy Halo characters and scantily-dressed bananas, but I like the way they work.

Cash aside, any night at Tracks is wild, but Halloween weekend is always extravagant, for lack of a better word. Everyone is dressed up and happy, complimenting each other, dancing wildly on that one really big perch in the middle of the floor. There are cage dancers, cheeky hosts, and way too much bare skin.

And, you know, demons.

While Tracks is, of course, open to people of all sexualities and genders, everyone should keep in mind before deciding to attend that there are men in gstrings dancing on every platform in the room. That, and people of your own gender will probably hit on you.

With that disclaimer, all systems are go for a very creepy, gay Halloween. Have fun, kids: check your candy before you eat it, don’t take drinks from strangers, and always have a buddy when you go to use the gender-neutral restroom.