Happy Halloween! Today, people will be dressing up in their favorite costumes to go to Halloween parties, and parents will be taking their children around to different houses trick-or treating to get some candy. If you are a last-minute kind of person and don’t have a costume, you might think that sitting in a wheelchair pretending to be disabled is a good last-minute idea because it’s easy and requires almost no effort. Is pretending to be disabled a good Halloween costume? No, absolutely not, and I wouldn’t even dress up as a disabled person for Halloween and I have a disability, because although it may seem harmless, it is considered a highly offensive costume that sends the wrong kind of message, even though you may have good intentions. It is harmful to the disabled community when you dress up as a disabled person because it portrays disability in scary way and people already have enough fear. Why shouldn’t you dress up as a disabled person for Halloween? In this post, I am going to give my opinion on why I think you shouldn’t pretend to be disabled for Halloween.
It reinforces the idea that disability is scary- On Halloween people are dressing up in their scariest costumes and when you pretend to be disabled it reinforces the idea that disability is scary and is something we should all fear. People already are scared of becoming disabled because of how the media portrays the disabled community and you are only contributing to that problem when your scary costume is a disabled person Disabled people are already accused of faking their disabilities and being attention-seeing and when you pretend to be disabled it reinforces these harmful stereotypes, We shouldn’t be teaching people to fear disability because anyone can become disabled and the scariest part of being disabled isn’t the challenges themselves but it’s inaccessibility and ableism. It is hard to live in an inaccessible world because disabled people sometimes lack support, and you are not helping when you make people fear disability more than they already do. People need to know that you can live well with a disability, and you are promoting the complete opposite of that when your scary costume is a disabled person.
Disability is not a costume- My disability is permanent, and I don’t get to decide I don’t want to be disabled today, and I struggle whether I want to be or not. When you dress up as a disabled person, it promotes the idea that disability is something you can turn on and off, which is harmful because most non-disabled people already think everyone fakes disabilities. People already think that everyone who doesn’t look disabled is a faker, and you are only contributing to that problem when you wear a costume and make people think that you can be disabled when you want to be.. Dressing up as a disabled person for Halloween can be very offensive because disability is not a costume, and it dismisses the challenges of a disability.
Some people may think you are making fun of them- When a non-disabled person dresses up and pretends to be disabled, a lot of the time, they are not thinking about the harms of that costume and have good intentions, but you can mean well and still promote the wrong kind of message that hurts a disabled person’s feelings. The challenge of a disability is hard, and we should be supporting disabled people through the hard times, but you are not going to be doing that when you pretend to be crippled. Some people may think you are making fun of them, which is not okay for anyone to do, whether you have a disability or not. Pretending to walk with crutches might seem like a harmless costume, and you may be doing it because you look up to a disabled person, but I am not going to see it that way and will probably think you are making fun of the challenges of my disability.
Assistive devices are not props- If you wanted to get a pair of crutches or a wheelchair for your Halloween costume, you could probably go up to a local charity and get one, but people without disabilities should not be doing that because people donate assistive devices to help other disabled people. Some disabled people struggle with paying for assistive devices because not all insurances cover them, and you might need to go to a charity to get a used one to be able to live life. When you go up to a local charity and get a wheelchair, you are only going to use it once, it hurts disabled people because it’s wasting resources, and you could be the reason someone with a legitimate disability doesn’t have a mobility device. Assistive devices are for people with disabilities, and not props you use because you need something for your costume, and it’s a waste of resources. It is already hard enough for disabled people to get necessary medical equipment, and you are only making it more difficult when you use assistive devices you don’t need.
There are a lot of good Halloween costumes that you can use that are not offensive but dressing up as a disabled person is not one of them. You might have good intentions when you dress up as a disabled person and mean it in a flattering way, but the reality is most disabled people will not see it that way and will probably think you are making fun of them. As a disabled person, I wouldn’t even pretend to be disabled for Halloween because you can easily misrepresent a disability if you are pretending to have a disability you have never experienced. Disabled people can use their assistive devices to help make their costumes even better, but I would never tell people that my disability is my costume and if I were going to use my crutches for a Halloween costume, it would be something completely unrelated to my disability. Please don’t dress up as a disabled person for Halloween and choose literally anything else, because although it may be an easy costume, it’s also a very offensive costume that will hurt a lot of disabled people. You will probably be a disabled person’s next tweet if your Halloween constume is a disabled person. What are you dressing up as for Halloween? If you liked this post, please leave a comment below and share it with your friends.
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