BY NATALIA McGILL

People like to talk about appropriation during Halloween, and it defaults to cultural appropriation. What a lot of people forget is that you can appropriate queer culture and queer identities. Here are some tips to ensure that your costume doesn’t appropriate queer/trans/non-binary identities.

CROSS DRESSING/DRAG

Cross dressing/drag is a big no-no for people who are not exploring their identity or who haven’t been introduced or apart of the drag community. Think about all the people who were abused or killed simply for cross dressing, or dressing in drag, and now here you are doing it for fun, without consequence, without any awareness of the history of the implications.

GAY/LESBIAN/BISEXUAL

I have seen people dress up as “gay” where they’re covered in rainbows and “no they just meant gay as in happy, it’s a play on words, it’s just fun!”. Yeah, you can go tell the people who were degraded, abused, and killed holding pride flags that it’s just a fun play on words. I have also seen lesbians in the community dress up as “bisexuals” as a joke.

QUEER/TRANS CELEBRITIES

Caitlyn Jenner was a topic of conversations a while ago, where a costume of her became available to purchase after her transition. It was disgusting watching people trying to defend the costume that took someone’s identity and turned it into a costume. Again for fun right? No, it’s nice that you can be Caitlyn Jenner for Halloween, but she can’t be herself without the entire world harassing and verbally abusing her in person and online.

In general, if it is linked to gay, trans, queer, non binary, lesbian, bisexual, or anything that seems like it could be under the LGBTQIA+ umbrella, it probably isn’t a good idea to wear it.

Think about it.