Arresting Dress - Cross Dressing, Law, Fascination in Nineteenth Century San Francisco

In 1863, San Francisco's Board of Supervisors passed a law that criminalized appearing in public in "a dress not belonging to his or her sex." Adopted as part of a broader anti-indecency campaign, the cross-dressing law became a flexible tool for policing multiple gender transgressions, facilitating over one hundred arrests before the century's end. Over forty U.S. cities passed similar laws during this time, yet little is known about their emergence, operations, or effects. Grounded in a wealth of archival material, Arresting Dress traces the career of anti-cross-dressing laws from municipal courtrooms and codebooks to newspaper scandals, vaudevillian theater, freak-show performances, and commercial "slumming tours." It shows that the law did not simply police normative gender but actively produced it by creating new definitions of gender normality and abnormality. It also tells the story of the tenacity of those who defied the law, spoke out when sentenced, and articulated different gender possibilities.

List of contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction. Not Belonging 1

1. Instant and Peculiar 23

2. Against Good Morals 41

3. Problem Bodies, Public Space 61

4. A Sight Well Worth Gazing Upon 78

5. Indecent Exhibitions 97

6. Problem Bodies, Nation-State 121

Conclusion. Against the Law 139

Notes 149

Bibliography 175

Index 191

About the author

Clare Sears is Associate Professor of Sociology and Sexuality Studies at San Francisco State University.

Product details

• Authors: Clare Sears
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.01.2015
• EAN: 9780822357582
• ISBN: 978-0-8223-5758-2
• No. of pages: 216
• Dimensions: 154 mm x 232 mm x 15 mm
• Series: Perverse Modernities: A Series Edited by Jack Halberstam and Lisa Lowe; Perverse Modernities: A Series; Perverse Modernities: A Series Edited by Jack Halberstam and Lisa Lowe; Perverse Modernities: A Series
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Regional and national histories; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories; Amerikanische Geschichte, Gender Studies, Gender Studies: Gruppen, USA Westen, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Gender Studies, HISTORY / United States / State & Local / West (AK, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NV, UT, WY), SOCIAL SCIENCE / LGBT Studies / Gay Studies