The Butcher Singlet Is Not a Bodysuit. It's Also Exactly a Bodysuit. That's the Point.
By Cesar Torres
For about half a decade now, gay and queer men have been posting selfies in bodysuits. On Instagram, on X, on dating apps, on OnlyFans. The garment traveled from women's fashion into queer spaces and landed somewhere genuinely interesting — on bottoms who read as powerful, on tops and studs who embrace pro wrestling aesthetics, and on gender expansive bodies that made the leotard silhouette do something it was never marketed to do. The lines it creates, the shapes it reveals, the way it sits on a muscular frame — none of that was in the women's fashion brief. Queer culture pushed the envelope of fashion yet again.
I watched that happen and loved it. Then I launched my own line.
But there's a second history to this garment that queer fashion never fully claimed, and it's the one that lives in my body as someone who grew up watching WWF and lucha libre on Saturday morning television in the 80's and 90's.
The Butcher Singlet is what Nikita Koloff wore. What Andre the Giant wore. What the super-heavyweights of the blood-and-guts era of pro wrestling wore when they needed a garment that could hold the weight of their presence — deep scoop in the back, high cut at the hip, nothing to hide behind and nothing to apologize for. It is technically a leotard. Pro wrestling has always known this. The tough muscle brutes who built the aesthetic of the 1970s and 80s ring wore what the fashion world would call a women's one-piece, and they wore it like a weapon.
BG East knows this. Can-Am knows this. The gay wrestling world has understood for twenty years what the mainstream forgot: this cut is the most brutally honest garment an athlete can put on. The high leg line reveals the quads and hamstrings. The deep back exposes the lats. The fit across the chest leaves no room for approximation. And guess what? All bodies, from large to lean to muscular to abled, look amazing in a butcher.
LED Queens now makes them in 80s' inspired prints. Hair Metal. Black Cherry. Purple Heel. Big Pump. Four colorways built for the stud who grew up with fantasies of the WWF and WCW and eventually found himself on a gay wrestling site at 2am understanding exactly why. Four more colorways dropping in the next few weeks.
No one else makes these in larger sizes with bold prints. That's a deliberate choice. We work very hard to offer a full set of sizes for all our customers.
LED Queens is taking it back to the ring and keeping everything queer culture added to it. Brutal and beautiful. Muscle and gender expansive. Nikita Koloff and the stud who knows exactly why Nikita Koloff matters.
The full wrestling history of the Butcher Singlet is on the HTKS blog: The Butcher Singlet: A Short History of the Most Dangerous Garment in Wrestling.
The singlets are live now: Shop Butcher Singlets at LEDQueens.com.