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Originally Posted by Victoria
I did too, as I had never heard of it. As you say, it was humiliating, dehumanizing, and a licence to assault people. It made me think about how cross-dressing would have been quite a courageous form of political resistance; something I’d never considered before.
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Apparently the three piece rule wasn't enacted in law anywhere, but the term was widely used. You can read more about it here:
How Dressing in Drag Was Labeled a Crime in the 20th Century. A quote from that article:
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Mitchell also noticed an additional wrinkle: gay men and transgender women who mention the three-article rule were usually being arrested in bar raids. Lesbians and trans men, on the other hand, were being accosted in bars and on the streets.
“Police were using this to check their underwear,” Mitchell says, using the law as an excuse for street-level sexual assault and sexual humiliation.
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