Gray v. Pitts (1771) was a Suffolk Inferior Court and, later, Superior Court case in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts which contemporary historians have regarded as an example of the "gay panic" defense and an early case regarding cross-dressing in Colonial America.
[1] During the hearings, William Molineux testified in Pitt's defense, stating that Gray had dressed in women's clothes and had the "outward appearance of a woman."
Historians and LGBT scholars including Jonathan Ned Katz and Robert Qaks have regarded that Pitt's feelings of insult and anger may have arisen from being an object of jest, and from inadvertently experiencing feelings of attraction for a male that he thought was female, which would regard his defense as an early example of the gay or trans panic defense in a court setting.
[1] Although presiding judge of the Superior Court and colonial Governor Thomas Hutchinson cited a 1696 Massachusetts law (c. 2, §7, 1 A&R 208, 210) which prohibited men or women from cross-dressing, the jury still awarded £18 in compensatory damages to Gray and found him innocent of any guilt or provocation.
It is primarily preserved in the public record because of Adams' own writings and shorthand notes taken before and during the court proceedings.