Q Toon: Costume Drama

One of  2015's crop of topical Hallowe'en costumes has drawn the ire of the transgendered community: for $29.95, you can dress up like Caitlyn Jenner's "Call Me Caitlyn" Vanity Fair cover.

Spirit Halloween sells a costume consisting of a corset similar to the one Jenner wore on the magazine cover, plus a reddish wig; a version sold at Wholesale Halloween Costumes adds a sash with the words "Call Me Caitlyn" on it.

An on-line petition started in August demanded that Spirit Halloween withdraw the Jenner outfit.

"[I]f 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."

(That word "folx" is a new one on me -- I'm familiar with the attempts to castrate words that contain the letters "man" or "men" in them, but I had no idea that "folks" was somehow trans/gyno/homo/whatever-phobic. I'll have to look that up.)

Spirit Halloween spokesperson Lisa Barr told CNN: "At Spirit Halloween we create a wide range of costumes that are often based on celebrities, public figures, heroes and superheroes. Caitlyn Jenner is all of the above and our Caitlyn-inspired costume reflects just that."

CNN offers some suggestions for Halloween costumes "you can get away with," although I'd caution white cisgender guys to be careful about dressing up as their #1 suggestion, Cookie from Empire.