CROSSDRESSING CONTEXT
CHIC members and other crossdressers across the USA were criminals for dressing in women’s clothing according to the laws of the land in the 1970’s and before. Not for any nefarious reason like robbing a bank, but merely expressing their feminine side. Nonetheless, being caught in women’s clothing in public got you arrested on the spot and hauled off to jail until you appeared before a judge.
Now fast forward to 2023 and you are attending DIVA Las Vegas like I did this last October dressed like a conservative woman, not sexy or provocative in any way, but like the photo below.
Imagine you are dressed like me above and encounter a police officer as you walk through the hotel lobby. He takes you by the arm and escorts you to the side of the room where he asks you if you are wearing 3 items of male clothes anywhere? When you state that you are not, DUH! He then asks you to put your hands behind your back then promptly handcuffs you explaining that you are under arrest for impersonating a female, even though you have not spoken to, looked at, or made any kind of gesture of any kind to anyone.
Now once you are booked into the Las Vegas jail complete with photo and fingerprinting, you go before a judge who reads your charges and asks how you plead: guilty or not guilty? It’s kind obvious that you were dressed as a woman, so you plead guilty and get fined. Sometimes your picture is posted in the paper for all to see.
It gets worse when you return home and go to work, and the boss wants to talk with you first thing in the morning. He explains that he is aware of the arrest and terminates you on the spot. If you, like many of the early CHIC members, have a security clearance it will be revoked immediately, and you can forget getting it back. If you worked in the defense industry, you no longer have a career, and even movie stars would see their roles evaporate overnight.
Privacy and the security of CHIC’s members were crucial elements of membership in CHIC. Members and families needed to be protected from negative repercussions of a member’s being discovered.
The following links will provide additional information about the plight of crossdressers with respect to law enforcement.
How Dressing in Drag Was Labeled a Crime in the 20th Century https://www.history.com/news/stonewall-riots-lgbtq-drag-three-article-rule
On the west coast a couple of year before Stonewall there was the Compton’s Cafeteria riot in San Francisco based on mistreatment of transgender people.
Below is a typical story of a crossdresser losing their career after being arrested for dressing in public. You can read much more on Felicity her story on Stana’s March 11, 2024 post on her blog femulate.org. Stana’s post has many links to historical archives on crossdressing.
Felicity Chandelle, known in some circles as Captain John MacDonald Miller.
Miller was one of the earliest airline pilots. He began flying for United Airlines in 1936 and switched to Eastern Airlines in 1939. He was an airline pilot until 1964, when he was fired after public exposure following an arrest in New York City for having violated an anti-masking law by being crossdressed. He pled not guilty and was convicted, whereupon he took his case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to consider it.
Four of Captain Miller’s aircraft are preserved in the Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C.
