I know it’s a bit early, but today I’m going to talk a little bit about Halloween. Halloween—and, for some people, all of October—is a time of sweet celebration of all things spooky and scary. From glowing jack-o-lanterns appearing on porches to orange candy corn scattered everywhere, there are plenty of things to love. Halloween is also the chance to dress up as anything you want. A princess! A pirate! A witch! And, my personal favorite, a Power Ranger! You have almost an endless list of choices of people and things to dress up as.
But for some reason, people still gravitate toward sexist, racist, and just generally insensitive costumes. The latest one that has been making waves is the costume of Caitlyn Jenner that Spirit Halloween is carrying.
Some, like Spirit Halloween’s head of PR and marketing Trisha Lombardo, claim that this costume is a celebration of her breakthrough success for the transgender community. According to Lombardo, Caitlyn has “proven to be the most important real-life superhero of the year, and Spirit Halloween is proud to carry the costume that celebrates her.” Which is true—Caitlyn really should be celebrated for the work she’s done to open up the boundaries which our society uses to limit “normal” and “acceptable" living. But a Halloween costume is not the way to do it. Especially since costumes around this time are notoriously mocking and asinine.
Of course, there is still the argument that by making a Halloween costume of Caitlyn Jenner, we're normalizing transgender individuals. If not that, then wearing such a controversial costume will spark more conversations about the transgender community. While it's certainly begun to inspire more dialogue, it's not inspiring the right kind of dialogue since conversations that are surrounding this costume aren't about how we can help transgender youth by finding them homes or safe spaces to be themselves. We aren't talking about how 12 percent of all transgender youth report being sexually assaulted and that 50 percent of all transgender individuals have experienced sexual violence. No, instead we're here, talking about why we shouldn't be making offensive costumes in the first place.
But maybe we should take this chance to talk about the transgender community. Maybe we should take what was supposed to be and will most likely be used as a caricature of a person and peoples, and make it an opportunity to learn more about our transgender friends and family. This is our chance to go forth and remember that costumes are not the people they mimic and mock. We are all humans and we should remember that when we don our costumes at the end of October.