Halloween is coming up, and the time to pick out and put together a costume is rapidly approaching. However, while brainstorming what to wear for Halloween, many people don’t consider that the costumes they think would be fun to dress up as are actually extremely offensive. Although there are many ways to be offensive on Halloween, these are some of the most common. Here are a few of the many examples of costumes that you should steer clear of:

Racial/Cultural Costumes

Native American

You may not realize it, but wearing a costume such as this one is appropriating Native American culture and making a mockery of it. It’s bad enough to appropriate a culture, and reducing it to a “sexy” costume promotes the fetishization and mistreatment of Native American women.

Geisha

Repeat after me: A culture is not a costume! Unless you belong to the culture you really have no reason to be dressing up like it. Our society already has a gross habit of fetishizing Asian women as being “exotic” and demure, and this costume reinforces the way Asian women are

Mexican

Trust me, this costume is far from authentic, and it feeds into the way people sexualize Mexican/ Latina women as being “spicy” and “feisty.” Dressing up as a different race/ethnicity/ culture as a costume on Halloween is essentially reducing that race/ethnicity/culture to a costume, instead of recognizing that they’re people too.

And the list could go on (this also goes for men's costumes as well) …

Costumes that Relate to Mental Illnesses

"Insane" Person

You may think it’s cool and scary, but remember that you get to take the costume off at the end of the night. Mentally ill people don’t get to decide to “take off” their mental illness, and depicting them as just another scary Halloween costume perpetuates the myth that mentally ill people are inherently dangerous and scary people.

Gender Identity

“Tranny” Costume

Why should someone’s gender identity be treated as a joke and be considered funny? Transgender people and their identities are not a joke. They’re real people just like everyone else and deserve to be respected. Coming out as transgender is not an easy thing to do, and being made a mockery out of only makes it harder.

Remember, you get to safely wear your costume and take it off at the end of the night, while people do not get to safely take off their culture, mental illness, or gender identity. Ultimately, why be offensive on Halloween when there are literally endless possibilities for way more original and non-offensive costumes? So go ahead and have a super spooky Halloween, and make sure you’re not being a jerk in the process.