Arresting Dress

In 1863, San Franciscoandrsquo;s Board of Supervisors passed a law that criminalized appearing in public in andldquo;a dress not belonging to his or her sex.andrdquo; 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 centuryandrsquo;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 andldquo;slumming tours.andrdquo; 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.

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andquot;Arresting Dress is an outstanding archivally based and theoretically potent intervention in transgender history. Clare Sears offers fresh insight into how individuals targeted by cross-dressing law manipulated gender boundary logics to make public claims or evade unwelcome scrutiny. Clearly written, vividly documented, and vigorously argued, this book explores how policing gender conformity had far-reaching impacts.andquot;

andquot;Donand#39;t let the subtitle of Clare Searsand#39;s important new book fool you into thinking this is a narrow investigation of an obscure law in a small city a long time ago. Itand#39;s filled with big ideas about bodies and spaces and norms, about the generative as well as disciplinary function of the law, and about the historical transience of gender categories as well as the persistence of transgendering practices. Searsand#39;s powerful analytical framework allows her to connect the exclusion of gender nonconformers from the public sphere with similar exclusions of raced and disabled bodies, while her crystal-clear prose and compelling archival stories never let the reader get lost in the weeds of excessive theorization. A great book for undergraduates and specialists alike.andquot;

andldquo;[A] slim yet comprehensive look at how an 1863 law against appearing in public dressed as a different sex invited a regime of surveillance upon andldquo;problem bodies.andrdquo; The book covers a lot of ground.andrdquo;

andldquo;[A]s the first in-depth examination of cross-dressing laws in an American city, the book is a valuable contribution to gender studies. It demonstrates convincingly that societal discomfort with difference in gender-expression was historically tied to societal discomfort with other sorts of difference. Both led to the marginalization of andldquo;problem bodies.andrdquo;andrdquo;

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

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