Walmart’s Selling A Transphobic “T — — Granny” Halloween Costume
Trick or Transphobia! Get ready for spooky slurs at your neighborhood megastore.
Trigger Warning: This article contains transphobia, the offending image, and the use of slurs.
’Tis the season for culturally appropriative, body-shaming, and misogynistic costumes galore. It’s one thing when photos surface of people’s woefully ignorant DIY Halloween costumes. It’s another when online retailers like Spirit Halloween, Costumes4Less, and Wholesale Halloween Costumes sanction discrimination with costumes like Gorgeous Geisha, Pochahottie, and Hey Amigo, (actual costumes that are actually sold on their actual websites in actual 2016).
Walmart, however, decided this year that they would not just go the ubiquitous-though-entirely-inappropriate route of offering a transphobic man-in-a-dress costume. They’re actually calling it “Tr — — Granny.”
Yes, really.
Walmart lists it as being from 7th Avenue Costumes. While it’s unclear at this time if they’re the original manufacturers, the costume is definitely being sold on several other websites.
Why is this a problem? Because the man-in-a-dress trope perpetuates the idea that trans women are not women. That no trans people are the gender they identify as. That we’re just masquerading in pathetic costumes and trying to trick people.
Transphobic costumes in themselves are a common enough site during Halloween (just check the men’s section of any costume website I’ve linked to so far — here’s a fatphobic, sexist, culturally appropriative freebie), but to name the costume with the most offensive slur for a transgender person is outright disgusting.
You can’t claim this costume is an opportunity for men to gender bend, or whatever B.S. face-saving claim you want to make, when the name of the costume is a slur that has been used to dehumanize trans women for generations. Your intent is clear. Trans women are a joke.
Thanks to the work of people like Ohio University’s Students Teaching About Racism in Society (STARS), whose popular “We’re A Culture, Not A Costume” poster campaign has reached royal meme status while retaining its core message, we’re seeing increasing backlash to inappropriate costumes each year.
Reaction to Dreamgirl’s Anna Rexia costume went viral and eventually, eventually led many stores to pull the costume. The internet was appalled when Spirit Halloween not only offered a Caitlyn Jenner costume last year, but tried to claim it was honoring her.
Tides are changing steadily, but costumes like the T — — Granny prove ignorance and discrimination still loom large, especially in commercial marketing. I can only hope Walmart decides to take the high road and remove this costume. A public move from one of the most influential companies in the world would surely put shame and pressure on the other costume stores to remove the offending product. I know it’s not your strong suit, Walmart, but try to do a good deed here.
Let’s get Walmart to take the costume down and create a ripple effect so the other stores, and eventually the manufacturer, are held responsible. I want to know who came up with the name for this costume and I’d like to explain to them why it’s not okay. If you want to join in the fight, tweet at Walmart with #TrickOrTransphobia and tell them why you don’t support their decision to display a blatantly transphobic and harmful costume.
UPDATE: Walmart has removed the costume and is apologizing individually to people who tweeted at them. The item was listed as part of their new Marketplace, which is their attempt to be an Amazon competitor. Hopefully this situation proved the need for better oversight on items being submitted to the Marketplace. The costume remains on countless Halloween costumes stores. I encourage you to continue tweeting and emailing them to get it removed.
H/t to Reddit user u/drewiepoodle for posting about this.
