Female toplessness in the United States
Other successful cases have been on the basis of freedom of expression in protest, or simply that exposure of breasts is not indecent (or similar terminology).
Each lawsuit, if it prevails at the appellate level, will legalize topfreedom in the following U.S. circuits of appeal (from west to east): 9 (California), 8 (Missouri) and 4 (Maryland).
A federal lawsuit in the 7th Circuit (Illinois), was lost at the appellate level and the petition for review by the U.S. Supreme Court was denied.
That effectively gave females of all ages the right to go topless wherever males can in the jurisdiction of the 10th Circuit (Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas and Oklahoma states as well as all counties and cities therein).
[16][17][18] The Venice Beach neighborhood of Los Angeles, in 1974, was home to a naturist resort that scandalized the community, attracted cameras and spurred LA to ban nudity.
[24] On February 22, 2017, U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson granted a preliminary injunction against a Fort Collins ordinance banning female toplessness saying it likely violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment due to gender-based discrimination.
[citation needed] There is also another important factor to consider: the right of a woman to protest topless has been held to be a freedom of expression and not an equal protection issue.
[citation needed] For example, in 2007, a Florida court acquitted a woman of indecent exposure for being topless on Daytona Beach because of the political nature of her stand, under the First Amendment right of free speech.
[32] However, the biggest issue is that the Florida statute concerning lewdness (aforementioned above)[28] not only adopted terms currently considered ambiguous (regarding female breasts) like "sexual organs" (biologically they are known as the "reproductive organs" of the human reproductive system, and because of this, only the genitals are generally included on this category), but also does not clearly assert if the concept of public nudity (including female toplessness) is (or not) considered by itself an act of indecent exposure (if practiced in a nonsexual context and also outside of official places already designated for nudity).
For example, female topfreedom is legal in these locales: Garden City; Eagle; Meridian; Coeur d'Alene; McCall; Sun Valley; and Ketchum.
On January 16, 2018, Chelsea C. Eline, and four other women filed a federal lawsuit against Ocean City seeking preliminary and permanent injunctive relief.
But Bredar also said “[t]his Court questions whether laws which distinguish between men and women based on ‘public sensibilities’ can survive indefinitely.
Such amorphous concepts are vulnerable to prejudice and stereotypes grounded more in fear than in reality.”[48] In December 2007, 50 residents of Pittsfield, Massachusetts petitioned the City Council requesting a segregated beach for topless sunbathing by both men and women.
[49][50][51] In 2010, 200 residents of Pittsfield placed a question on the ballot asking whether State laws should be clarified to allow topless sunbathing equally for both men and women.
[53] On May 3, 2022, the government of Nantucket decided to approve an amendment which allows the practice of female toplessness in all public and private beaches of the town (based on the principle of gender equality).
In 2020, the city of East Lansing, Michigan amended its disorderly conduct laws to remove a clause specifically prohibiting women from exposing their breasts.
[57] On October 26, 2015, the ACLU of Missouri, on behalf of Jessica Lawson and Amber Hutchison representing "Free the Nipple—Springfield Residents Promoting Equality", filed suit against the City of Springfield over its anti-topless ordinance in the District Court for the Western District of Missouri of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
[58] On October 5, 2017, a federal judge upheld Springfield's ordinance that requires a woman, but not a man, to completely cover their areola with an opaque material.
[61] In February 2016, a judge dismissed[62] a case against two female "Free the Nipple" activists, Heidi Lilley and Barbara MacKinnon, who were cited for being topless at Gilford beach.
[62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73] Because the judge decided "the town lacked authority for a prosecution because there is no state law that prohibits the exposure of female breasts in public," and the town "lacked authority for a criminal prosecution that's neither prohibited by the criminal code nor by statute," a bill to ban women from exposing their nipples in public was introduced.
[76] On February 8, 2019, the New Hampshire supreme court, in a 3 to 2 decision, ruled that the city of Laconia's ordinance does not discriminate on the basis of gender or violate the women's right to free speech.
[79] In 2008, Phoenix Feeley (aka Jill Coccaro) was charged with violating an ordinance prohibiting public nudity in Spring Lake, New Jersey.
[81] In the five years since Phoenix Feeley was found guilty and fined, she appealed the case to the New Jersey state appellate court, who ruled against her.
Ron Taft, a Manhattan attorney, offered to pay her fine but Feeley refused, desiring to make a point.
She sued the city for violating a New York State Supreme Court ruling in Santorelli's case which had declared that women can go topless in public.
[91] The objective of the group, besides enjoying the sun and book reading, was to create awareness that New York law allows toplessness in public and to change social attitudes to the exposure of breasts.
Among other places, she went topless on the Staten Island Ferry,[93] at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Terminal, in front of an elementary school, on a train, and outside a Hooters restaurant.
On October 11, 2011, she appeared in the Midtown Community Court and promptly removed her top, baring her breasts, in front of the judge.
"[95] Despite the 10 Circuit's ruling that women must be treated equally to men, Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter claims it does not automatically apply to his state.
[99] In 1972, the Texas Equal Rights Amendment was passed into law, which Lewisville[100] and Fort Worth[100] have used to strike down gendered ordinances, including toplessness.
