44.

Dear Editor:

I was interested in the small item on page 72 of #2 of TRANSVESTIA regarding the decision of the State Court of Appeals in the case of Frank Porter Jr., who was arrested in a tavern and fined $68.80 for wearing slacks, ballet slippers, a woman's blouse and falsies. I searched the published reports of the Ohio Court of Appeals for '59 and '60 but could find no report of that case. It may be reported or rather, recorded only in the "unreported cases" or it may have been upheld without any opinion being written.

There is no statute (that is, there is no law) in Ohio making it a crime to wear clothing of the opposite sex, but there may be an ordinance in Toledo to that effect An examination of the laws of the various states fails to reveal many laws directly forbidding the wearing of the clothing of the opposite sex, and I am inclined to be- lieve that in most if not all cases, TVs who become in- volved with the police because of their apparel, are ar- rested under the law penalizing "Disorderly Conduct," or vagrancy". These two time honored police charges are us ually pressed into service when a policeman finds someone doing something of which he disapproves, and which is not forbidden by and Law the officer can find.

(((Ed. Note: The time honored "vagrancy" charge is apparently not valid any more. In entirely different matters in which I have had a run in with the City At- torney of Los Angeles, he has refused to sign complaints based on vagrancy or loitering (another old time police catchall) on the grounds that recent rulings of the Supreme Court have rendered these laws unconstitutional. This apparently pulls some of the teeth the police used to use, but "disturbing the peace" or "behavior affront- ing public decency" and such are still used.))))

I am clearly of the opinion that a TV properly and modestly dressed cannot legally be found guilty of either charge, but in almost all of the cases the unfortunate victim is glad to pay a fine and have it over with without getting an attorney and contesting the charges.