So it doesn't sound like there are any states that have laws against crossdressing.
I get the impression that some small towns still might have them and actually enforce them.
What's the easiest way to find out if a town has such laws? Do you have to contact the police department and/or city office?
It wouldn't be fun to be stopped by a police officer while dressed and discover it's illegal.
There maybe a few laws still on the books prohibiting crossdressing but none has been enforced for many years. If you are concerned call your local police department or if you are in a city call an LBGT organization or the ACLU.
It takes a real man to wear a dress.
[SIZE=4]Very interesting question Dack, but would agree with T that most may not be enforced. [/SIZE]
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[SIZE=4]Funny how small towns carry laws that no one enforces but can still be used. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=4][/SIZE]
[SIZE=4]Maybe there really is a law against wearing white after labor day.... who knows?????????[/SIZE]
[SIZE=4][/SIZE]
[SIZE=4]sorry, not trying to make light of a question you take serious.. i would do the research of the area you plan to visit or pass through..[/SIZE]
Marissa
"You better look hard and look twice,
...is that me, baby or just a brilliant disguise?"- The Boss
If I found I lived in a locality with such a law, I'd go through the local odinances with a fine tooth comb, find every other sill restriction, then start a campaign to abolish all of them (to avoid suspiciously singling out the one cd law).
Frankly it's a dumb law to have on the books. If some hotshot cop tried to enforce it, perhaps to embarass the "perp," the town could find itself at the wrong end of a very big-- and expensive-- lawsuit. The ACLU would probably put some lawyers on it for free. I doubt most local governments have counsel that is quite so cheap.
Stop by the State Police station enfemme.. If they don't arrest you then your good to go! Lol
Unless they are the fashion police. Then someone might deserve it!Originally Posted by Karren Hutton
Stacy can frisk me any time. I'll pass on getting cuffed by Clinton, though, he's so bitchy sometimes.
Hugs...Joni Marie
Unless they are the fashion police. Then someone might deserve it!
"Because equality is not a concept. It's not something we should be striving for. It's a necessity. Equality is like gravity. We need it to stand on this earth as men and women. And the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who's confronted with it."
--Joss Whedon, to a reporter who asked, "So why do you create these strong women characters?"
Here's my take on this.
If there was a federal or state law against crossdressing, then the police would have to arrest everyone, male and female, who dresses in clothing of the opposite sex no matter if its full or partial.
Of course, you have the men who dress in women's clothes, but as many of you know women wear men's clothing for work, comfort, and pleasure. These would include sports jerseys (i.e. football, basketball, Hockey, Baseball, etc, etc.), suits and tuxes, shirts, pants, construction uniforms, etc, etc, etc.
If this law exists, it would probably contain hundreds of pages listing each individual item of clothing that is considered male specific and female specific, such as jewelry, shoes, hats, clothing, etc, etc, etc.
To me, a law like that could never be enforced because, as I said before, it would be impossible to arrest everyone who cross dress in one another's item of clothing because everyone does it.
I consider crossdressing an unofficial law because it's society, in general, who dictates it.
Hugs!
Last edited by joann07; 05-25-2009 at 10:30 AM.
JoAnn
I love to see a beautiful woman in a nice dress, but then again, I also want to wear that dress.
Ya know, if there really are any such laws or ordinances on the books somewhere, I would really be interested in hearing about them. Not just some sort of hearsay, like "I heard..." or "a friend of my cousin's brother-in-law's great uncle was arrested for crossdressing last year and spent 30 days in jail...".
My opinion is that no officer/deputy/constable/what-have-you would bother writing a citation for something so petty (if it is a crime somewhere it could only be a low level misdemeanor, not an arrestable offense), if he did write it no DA would prosecute and if somehow or other it did wind up in front of a magistrate or judge he would toss it out of court. Even small town cops or county deputies have way more to do these days than pursue such minor infractions, as do the courts. Just my two cents.
Hugs...Joni Marie
"Because equality is not a concept. It's not something we should be striving for. It's a necessity. Equality is like gravity. We need it to stand on this earth as men and women. And the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who's confronted with it."
--Joss Whedon, to a reporter who asked, "So why do you create these strong women characters?"
Oh definitely.Not sure if I'd want to call up the police station. Contacting the ACLU or other organization is a good suggestion.
I did run web searches against my city website (and the adjacent city's website) -- I didn't find anything posted about crossdressing. Of course, it might be enveloped in a broader law such as causing public disorder, etc.
Yes...it seems like there's a double standard in society. A woman can dress completely like a man, and little is noticed. If a man wear's a dress, it really attracts attention.
Women seem to get away with a lot of things nowadays when it comes to wearing clothes, but for men it's like a one way street.
You can't go the other way because society says so.
Hugs!
JoAnn
I love to see a beautiful woman in a nice dress, but then again, I also want to wear that dress.
Hi Dack-
Public laws are by definition public. You can simply contact your local police department or sheriff's office or county DA or whomever and ask. I suppose there is the remote possibility that some such antiquated state law or city ordinance could still be on the books but I can't really imagine a law enforcement officer citing someone for it, though I suppose it wouldn't be entirely outside the realm of possibility. Anyway, the simplest way to get your question answered is just to ask.
BTW, if the answer to your question turns out to be that there is such a law, please let me know so I can avoid where you live.
Hugs...Joni Marie
"Because equality is not a concept. It's not something we should be striving for. It's a necessity. Equality is like gravity. We need it to stand on this earth as men and women. And the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who's confronted with it."
--Joss Whedon, to a reporter who asked, "So why do you create these strong women characters?"
Twenty years ago, I contacted the city police departments of several small towns in Washington. I was just trying to be sure that there were not laws in those places against crossdressing. None had such laws I was glad to find out.
I'm not saying that they don't exist anywhere, but I do know that I've been stopped by the Washington State Patrol a couple of times when I was dressed. I gave the officer in each case my male driver's license. The officer did his checking, etc., and since the stops were for equipment problems (headlight, then a tail-light), he gave me back my license and said, "Drive carefully, and get that light fixed."
That was it.
But that was the Washington State Patrol. There are small logging towns in Washington where I wouldn't feel so confident that a stop would end so easily. If I were going to one of those (for whatever reason, I don't know), I would check ahead of time.
I would also check with the state Attorney General's office about state-wide practices.
warmly, Linnea
If anyone bothered to check, most of those old laws have a proviso. They make it illegal to crossdress "in the commission of a crime."
It's conceivable that they could apply such an ordinance, if they also had a law about "only gals in the female bathroom." But if you used that bathroom, if you got caught or arrested for it; it would be a very rare thing for a DA to take a case like that to Court. Would be an incredible waste of The Taxpayer's Money.
By all means go ahead and check up on your local laws, but I wouldn't get myself in a lather about it. The odds are really good that even if they have such laws, they haven't been enforced for years. Why would they choose to make an example out of you?
Peace and Love, Joanie
I ran a previous thread in which I tried to get people to contribute [U]specific[/U} laws about cross-dressing. If I recall correctly, no-one had any (or was interested enough to bother.) I did specifically disprove one supposed one that you can find hanging around the net in the "silly laws" lists. Someone did point to a specific US state in which it is apparently illegal to use the washroom opposite the marker on your driver's license, and yet (at least in part of the state) also illegal to use the washroom opposite of the way you are presenting, but there were no citations provided there.
I did find and cite a specific ordinance in a specific city that is still on the books and has to do with the use of washrooms at dance halls. It was, however, in a state that offered a number of state-wide protections, leaving it quite questionable as to whether the ordinance was enforceable.
When I see a situation like that, what I see is an opportunity for the city police to harass and even charge cross-dressers, possibly even jailing them: if the state attorney that your lawyer reaches then tells the city police "You have to withdraw that charge, the ordinance violates state law", then the police then release you, mouth an apology, and you are pretty helpless to do anything about the indignity unless you are upset enough about it that you have a lawyer in the area run "discovery" against the police training and operations manual to prove that the state had specifically made it clear that the ordinance was in conflict and needed to be taken off of the books.
Oh yes, I also pointed out at least one specific "anti-saggy-pants" law that discussion I read said was so vaguely worded as to make the law applicable to cross-dressing as well (I seem to recall it used that "appropriate to the sex" phrase rather than being gender-neutral in describing exactly what had to covered and what didn't have to be. Wouldn't want to stop the pretty young gals from wearing bikini bottoms, after-all....
If there was such a law, the jails would be full of women wearing trousers/pants
Hetic.. i best think twice b4 i pop down the shops.. great.. one more thing to worry about.. (^^,)
~xTx~
Apparently still a law on the books in Pueblo, Colo. that requires CD's to "Wear men's underwear underneath their gear..." LOL!
First of all, nothing bad has ever happened to me[knock on wood], because I've always used common sense.With respect: I consider the above to be "scaremongering". I also consider saying "Tell absolutely no one!" (a paraphrase of another recent posting of yours) to be "scaremongering". I appreciate that perhaps at some time some bad things might have happened to you, but your posts tend to adopt these position as if they were truisms, that if one does not pass perfectly that one should hide deeply in the closet.
If it is true that "Disorderly conduct can be whatever a cop says it is", then the lesson that we should learn from that is not that we should hide: the lesson we should learn from that is that we should employ our democratic rights (those of us who live in places that supposedly have rights) and fight to curtail the power of the police to make arbitrary "disorderly conduct" decisions. And if we aren't willing to do that, then the preventive lesson to be learned is not cross-dressing specific the preventive lesson is that since ANYTHING could be "disorderly conduct", that we aren't willing to struggle for our freedoms, that we should, everyone one of us, "pure male" or whatever our gender indication, stay home inside, doors locked and shades drawn and stereo barely audible at best -- because, after all, a cop might decide that the way we hold the watering can to sprinkle our flowers is "disorderly conduct". When anything might be arbitrarily deemed disorderly conduct and we aren't willing to push back against that, then what you've done is internalized the idea that everything is "disorderly conduct" and they just haven't gotten around to tossing you in jail for the way that everything you do is messed up.
Second, you go and fight the good fight, and get back to me on how it works out for you, and how much it costs in lawyer fees. If you go looking for trouble, you can usually find it.
My point was that a guy in heels and a dress, and no makeup or wig, is more likely to attract unwanted attention, than the same guy in heels, dress, makeup and a wig, who is at least making an effort to pass. I really feel that if someone is going to dress and go outside, they should at least make an effort to pass, and not simply try to test the limits.
Do a search on crossdressing law. There are many results both to protect, and, procecute crossdressers.
I know a few cops and if they caught you crossdressing they might put you in handcuffs and take you home with them, but they arent going to right you up. Just becuase a guy looks mean, just means he wants a hug.
I remember a long time ago (maybe 30 years or so) I was in Cincinnati on business at my hotel...Suddenly there were cops all over the place chasing someone whom they said was a transvestite. Fortunately I was in drab but I doubt they were chasing her simply because she was crossdressing. Maybe she stole something or perhaps was a hooker but at the time I wondered if there was a law against CDing.
Jennifer
yes Tess i was thinking ahead of my fingers on that one. the funny thing is Tess i have said the same thing you did on other sites lol
Batty i dont know when they changed that here. i was still under the impression that it was still the same old way :S
I should have said, crossdressers only then, as in maybe its different for transgenderd peoples?
oh ok just thinking . but in my case as a crossdresser not a trans genderd person (ie im in it for the kink and escapeisim)
maybe then its a case of im a guy use guy rooms sort of thing.
Batty i have searched our law society and state law stuff and have found nothing
I quess its easier for us where state law is state law and there is no real local law makerscuts down on confsion for us i gather lol
Maybe next time im up your way we should catch up and talk.
all i know is being out in public is no crime here
I will think harder and try to find a way to put my thoughts into *better* words
I enjoy looking at websites that have "dumb laws":
I am from AZ. and there is a law in Tucson prohibiting women from wearing pants.
In Ironton, OH. it is illegal to crossdress.
It is also illegal to CD in Durango, CO.
In Staten Island it is illegal for a father to call his son a "faggot" or "queer" in an effort to curb "girlie behavior".
Just skip a little east to Trinidad then
The earth is the mother of all people and all people should have equal rights upon it.
Chief Joseph
Nez Perce
“Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.” - Fred Rogers,
I have spent time researching some of those "dumb laws" that affected crossdressing. The ones I checked out either never existed in the indicated location, or had been repealed at various times ranging from 5 years ago to 37 years ago.
Unless specific citations of jurisdiction and section / paragraph number are given, you should read those lists as being amusing things that may or may not have existed at some time in the past. Some of them may be real and still on the books (even if never enforced), but especially in the USA, the laws would have to be very specific to avoid First Amendment challenges.
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