User:LiviaKarlstrom/sandbox

US Laws Against Crossdressing
The birth of anti-cross-dressing laws stemmed from the increase in non-traditional gender expression during the spread of Americas frontier, and the will to reinforce the two-gender system which was threatened by those who deviated from it. Some of the earlier cases of US arrests made due to cross-dressing are seen in 19th century Ohio. In 1849, Ohio passed a law which prohibited its citizens from publicly presenting themselves "in a dress not belonging to his or her sex", and before WWI, 45 cities in the US went on to pass anti-cross-dressing laws. These cities were noticeably focused in the West, however across America many cities and states passed laws outlawing things such as public indecency or appearing in public under a disguise - effectively encompassing cross-dressing without mentioning sex or gender. The laws which did this often did not lend to an easy prosecution on the grounds of cross-dressing, because they were designed to prohibit presenting in disguise in order to commit a criminal offense. Because of this, the laws mainly served the purpose of allowing police to harass cross-dressers.

There is significant documentation of the origins of these laws in San Francisco. The city passed it's anti-cross-dressing law in 1863, and the specific criminalization of one publicly presenting "in a dress not belonging to his or her sex" was included in a wider law which criminalized general public indecency such as nudity. This conflation of cross-dressing with acts such as prostitution was not unintentional, as many prostitutes at the time used cross-dressing to signify their availability. This association between the two furthered the perception of cross-dressing as a perversion, and the law was effectively “one of the city’s very first “good morals and decency” laws".

Throughout time, anti-cross-dressing laws became difficult to apply, as the definitions of feminine and masculine presentation grew more obscure. After the Stonewall riots of 1969, cross-dressing arrests decreased and became much less common. Today, while there are little to no laws directly protecting transgender individuals from discrimination and harassment, the majority of anti-cross-dressing laws have been overturned.