“If any person shall appear in a public place in a state of nudity, or in a dress not belonging to his or her sex, or in an indecent or lewd dress, or shall make any indecent exposure of his or her person, or be guilty of any lewd or indecent act or behavior, or shall exhibit or perform any indecent, immoral or lewd play, or other representation, he should be guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction, shall pay a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars (Revised Orders 1863).
In turn, this wide-reaching indecency law was not a stand-alone prohibition, but one part of a new chapter of the municipal codebook, tided Offenses Against Good Morals And Decency, which also criminalized public intoxication, profane language, and bathing in San Francisco Bay without appropriate clothing. Alongside these newly designated crimes, crossdressing was one of the very first “offenses against good morals” to be outlawed in the city. In 1866, the original five-hundred-dollar penalty was revised to a five-hundred-dollar fine or six months in jail; in 1875, it increased to a one-thousand-dollar fine, six months in jail, or both (General Orders 1866, 1875).
Despite its roots in indecency law, San Francisco’s cross-dressing law soon became a flexible tool for policing multiple gender transgressions. Before the end of the nineteenth century, San Francisco police made more than one hundred arrests for the crime of cross-dressing (Municipal Reports 1863-64 to 1899-1900).1 A wide variety of people fell afoul of this law, including feminist dress reformers, female impersonators, “fast” young women who dressed as men for a night on the town, and people whose gender identifications did not match their anatomical sex in legally acceptable ways (people who today would probably - although not definitely - identify as transgender). Those arrested faced police harassment, public exposure, and six months in jail; by the early twentieth century, they also risked psychiatric institutionalization or deportation if they were not U.S. citizens. For example, in 1917, a female-bodied man named Jack Garland was involuntarily institutionalized in a psychiatric ward for refusing to wear women’s clothing (Stryker and Van Buskirk 1996), while a male-bodied woman named Geraldine Portica was arrested for violating San Francisco’s cross-dressing law and subsequendy deported to Mexico (Jesse Brown Cook Scrapbooks n.d.).
San Francisco’s cross-dressing law marked the start of a new regulatory approach toward gender transgressions, and it attempted to draw and fix the boundaries of normative gender during a period of rapid social change. However, cross-dressing law signaled not only a new object of regulation, but also a new mechanism of regulation - exclusion from public space. From its inception, cross-dressing law was specifically concerned with public gender displays, and it targeted cross-dressing in public places. Notably, the law made it a crime for someone to “appear in a public place… in a dress not belonging to his or her sex,” and any clothing practices that occurred in private were beyond its scope (Revised Orders 1863; italics mine). As a result, some people confined their cross-dressing practices to private spaces and modified their appearance when in public for fear of arrest.
For example, in the 1890s, a male-bodied San Franciscan who identified as a woman named Jenny reported that although she preferred to wear women’s clothing, she only dared do so in private, for fear of arrest on the city streets. In a letter to German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, Jenny wrote: “Only because of the arbitrary actions of the police do I wear men’s clothing outside of the house. Skirts are a sanctuary to me, and I would rather keep on women’s clothing forever if it were allowed on the street” (Hirschfeld 1991, 84). Her fears were not unfounded. In 1895, the police arrested a middle-aged carpenter named Ferdinand Haisch for “masquerading in female attire,” after Hayes Valley residents called the cops on the “strange appearing woman” who walked through their neighborhood every evening (“Masqueraded as a Woman,” San Francisco Examiner, April 16, 1895, 4).
The police staked out the neighborhood for several weeks before arresting Haisch, who was wearing the latest women’s fashions - a three-quarter-length melton coat, green silk skirt, red stockings, silver-buckled garters, high-heeled shoes, and stylish hat. Following a brief stint in the city prison, Haisch was released by the police court judge on the condition that Haisch ceased wearing these clothes in public. Haisch apparendy complied, but her ever-vigilant neighbors were still not satisfied, and they demanded her rearrest for wearing women’s clothing at home. However, while predictably sympathetic to the neighbors’ complaints, the police admitted that they were powerless to intervene, because the law permitted cross-dressing in private (“Crazy on Female Attire,” The Call, July 3, 1895, 8).”–Clare Sears
From: Electric Brilliance: Cross Dressing Law and Freak Show Displays in Nineteenth Century San Francisco Sears, Clare . Women’s Studies Quarterly 36.¾ (Fall 2008): 170-187.)
So yes, leaving the house is literally a cis thing because gender policing didn’t end with literal gender policing.
As I wrote in the title, this post will be illegal in Spain in less than an hour. Why? Because in 1 July of 2015 will come into effect the new “Ley de Seguridad Ciudadana”, the “Law of Citizen Security” or how the people of Spain call it LEY MORDAZA, in english GAG LAW.
This law was approved by the government with the oposition of the rest of political parties, the population of Spain and even the EU, the UN and the Greenpeace between many others because is the most agressive attack to the human rights, particularly to the right of freedom of speech.
In less than an hour doing something of the next list will be illegal among many other things:
Manifestations around the Congress and the Senate
Take photos or videos of the police, even if they are using force against the people.
Stop an eviction
The pacific resistance
Tweet or spread information about a manifestation in Internet
Criticize the spanish monarchy
Spread information of the crimes of an accused party (like those participants of the government and politicians who now are being accused of corruption)
But the worst part is that, if you do any of those 44 new guidelines, you will be found guilty no by a proper judge but the government itself under the accusation of administrative offence, with a fine till 600.000 €
In short: this new law search the most agressive way to silence an entire population against one of the worst governments we ever had since the dictatorship of 1939.
NO A LA LEY MORDAZA #NOSOMOSDELITO
—————————— Edit 02:22 a.m. 1/7/2015
First I want to say THANK YOU for all the reblogs and likes this post is having, seriously, is very important for us to know the world is receiving notices about this things. Is amazing to see how people cares. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
The Twitter hastag #LeyMordaza is now Trending Topic in Spain. Only in spanish I fear but is one of the best sites to view and feel our anger: https://twitter.com/hashtag/LeyMordaza?src=tren
Yes, you read that correctly. Required. The law is called the “bed mandate” and calls for the U.S. to keep 34,000 immigrants incarcerated every day, regardless of whether such a high number makes any policy sense. The rule represents a perfect storm of xenophobia and America’s exceptional fondness for solving all of its problems by throwing someone in a jail cell — and it’s even more problematic than you’re imagining.
“According to Bloomberg, nearly two-thirds of detainees are housed in for-profit prisons. The corporations that run these prisons, which have a troubling record of poor management, high levels of violence and prisoner neglect, are flourishing financially and politically active.In 2013, Bloomberg reported that they were funneling money directly to the people in Washington who oversee immigrant incarceration: Since the 2008 elections, Corrections Corp., Geo and Management and Training Corp., the three biggest prison operators, have donated at least $132,500 to the campaigns of members of congressional subcommittees that appropriate money to [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and determine how much is spent on incarceration, according to the data from the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based nonprofit group that tracks campaign spending.“
Cut down 3 lbs of your sadness by simply using this 1 weird old tip: DON’T CARE
cut anyone out who tells you you aren’t skinny enough, masculine enough, or beautiful enough out of your life, or just cut them. you deserve to be loved and desired the way that you are. we are all trapped in our horrifying flesh prisons for life, let’s not make it worse by spending time and money and energy on looking the way someone else wants us to. It’s ok to change your body if you want to, but do it for your own reasons.
get gay * drop out of school * punch cops * break up with your family * fight for freedom * don’t snitch * make racists cry
