Caitlyn Jenner became a significant transgender icon a few months ago, standing shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Laverne Cox and Janet Mock. She is now being defended from being made into a costume, largely via a petition through Change.org. The Caitlyn Jenner costume is in poor taste, and few would deny that.
While Jenner herself has not yet commented on the controversy surrounding the costume in poor taste, the petition, spearheaded by transgender activist Addison Rose Vincent, has noted that Spirit Halloween – the manufacturers of the costume – would only be further marginalizing a group that continues to struggle.
“At a time when trans women and GNC folx, especially black trans women, are being murdered at such a high rate, and homelessness, unemployment, and inaccessbility to healthcare run rampant in our community, making fun of one or all of us is utterly insensitive and deplorable,” Vincent’s write-up on Change.org reads.
There are also those on social media who have criticized the Caitlyn Jenner costume because the costume is in poor taste.
This Caitlyn Jenner Halloween costume is the worst idea we’ve heard all year http://t.co/Lqd5GOBGLY pic.twitter.com/7zO9fGol9y
— HuffPost (@HuffPost) August 23, 2015
In the midst of the backlash about the Caitlyn Jenner costume, there are also other comments about racially-inappropriate costumes being sold.
There is no celebration of the hero that Caitlyn Jenner is with this costume; the costume is in poor taste, without question, and invites people from all sectors of society to mock how very challenging this transition into her true, authentic self was for Jenner. The outcry over this costume, however, has done more than simply incite a movement for people to stop something they deem completely inappropriate. It also casts a light on other costumes that are either racially or sexually inappropriate and has brought attention to just how awful some Halloween costumes can be.
According to WBT, Alex Schmider of the LGBT Center in Los Angeles also felt the Caitlyn Jenner costume was insensitive and in poor taste. Schmider noted that “It implies that being transgender is somewhat of a costume, and treating it as such is offensive, ignorant and done in poor taste.”
Spirit Halloween had the Caitlyn Jenner costume on its website but, amid the backlash, had it pulled. The plan is apparently to have the costume in stores by the end of September, but it remains to be seen whether the Change.org petition will be successful in having the costume, which is in poor taste, completely pulled from stores.
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