One Company Pulled Their Caitlyn Jenner Costume After Some Called It Transphobic (UPDATE: No, They Didn’t)

August 26, 2015 / Posted by:

Caitlyn Jenner’s transition and the lion-killing dentist are two of the biggest stories of the year, so course, companies are going to try to make that money by selling costumes of them. The lion-killing dentist costume exists and so does the Caitlyn Jenner costume, although it may be wiped from the Internet soon. As soon as websites started selling the Caitlyn Jenner costume, which is a recreation of her Vanity Fair cover, Twitter and LGBT groups labeled it as transphobic.

Spirit Costumes, one of the companies selling that mess, defended it at first by saying that they see Caitlyn Jenner as a “real-life superhero” and they are celebrating her. But the creator of a Change.org petition, which has over 8,700 signatures so far, thinks Spirit is spewing a whole lot of bullshit and asked them to yank the costume.

We demand that you revoke your ideas and production of a Caitlyn Jenner costume for Halloween. With a reputation of sexist, racist, and culturally appropriative costumes, we are concerned that this costume will continue your oppressive tradition with a transphobic costume of Caitlyn Jenner. Yes, as your PR and marketing head Trisha Lombardo stated in an interview, Caitlyn Jenner is a hero and celebrated in modern day culture, but that doesn’t excuse the exploitation and transphobia you’ll be committing this Halloween. To make a costume out of a marginalized identity reduces that person and community to a stereotype for privileged people to abuse. In this case, if you follow through with production of a Caitlyn Jenner costume, cisgender people will purchase it to make fun of her and our community. 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.

The Wrap claims that the petition worked, because Spirit Costumes removed the Caitlyn Jenner costume from their website. But a different Caitlyn Jenner costume is still up for sale at other websites like  Anytime Costumes (above) and Wholesale Halloween Costumes.

Offensive costumes aren’t exactly a new thing (see: all of last year’s Ray Rice costumes), but why in the hell are they charging $75 for that cheap crap?! That is the real crime. That costume is just a pair of ugly shorts, a bustier that looks like it’s made out of toilet paper and a $3 polyester wig. What’s with the shorts too? If you’re going to go there, at least wear the panties. How dreadful. Caitlyn Jenner would never wear that $10 swap meet ensemble.

(And I, for one, plan to be Pimp Mama Kris for Halloween. Here’s my costume.)

UPDATE: That was fast. As soon as I hit publish on this post, I got an email in my inbox from Gossip Cop. A rep for Spirit Costumes tells Gossip Cop that they haven’t pulled shit. Their costume, which is different than the one above, will be in stores in September.

SHARE
Our commenting rules: Don't be racist or bigoted, or post comments like "Who cares?", or have multiple accounts, or repost a comment that was deleted by a mod, or post NSFW pics/videos/GIFs, or go off topic when not in an Open Post, or post paparazzi/event/red carpet pics from photo agencies due to copyright infringement issues. Also, promoting adblockers, your website, or your forum is not allowed. Breaking a rule may result in your Disqus account getting permanently or temporarily banned. New commenters must go through a period of pre-moderation. And some posts may be pre-moderated so it could take a minute for your comment to appear if it's approved. If you have a question or an issue with comments, email: michaelk@dlisted.com

src="https://c.statcounter.com/922697/0/f674ac4a/1/"
alt="drupal analytics" >