A US costume shop has come under fire for its Caitlin Jenner Hallowe'en costume - targeted at men.
A Halloween costume modelled on Caitlyn Jenner has been branded ‘disgusting’ on social media.
Created by Spirit Halloween fancy dress shop, the costume is modelled on Caitlyn’s now famous Vanity Fair cover, and comes with shorts, a padded top, pageant sash and wig - all for $74.99.
But while Spirit Halloween have claimed that the costume was created to ‘celebrate’ Jenner’s new status as a ‘real-life superhero’, the rest of the Internet appears to disagree, and a petition has already been started to demand the brand remove the outfit from their website.
Activist Addison Rose Vincent started the petition, explaining that it's not OK for anybody to dress up as Caitlyn - because they haven't experienced what she, and thousands of other transgender individuals, have been through.
“To make a costume out of a marginalised identity reduces that person and community to a stereotype for privileged people to abuse," she says. "In this case, if you follow through with the production of a Caitlyn Jenner costume, cisgender people will purchase it to make fun of her and our community.”
The petition, which has already been signed over 1500 times, looks set to exceed its target of 2500 signatures by the end of the week (if not before).
Whether Spirit Halloween genuinely intended their costume to celebrate Caitlyn or not isn't really the point. After all, transgenderism isn't a costume that you can take on and off at will - it's a difficult, painful experience, which sees many individuals discriminated against over the course of their entire lives.
And while there has been a mass outpouring of support for Caitlyn – she broke President Obama’s record for the fastest-grossing Twitter account on the day that her VF cover was released – instances like this Halloween costume prove that collectively, we’ve still got a lot of changes to make.
