## Facts

- Wallace Wilson and Kim Kimberley were arrested in Chicago shortly after leaving a restaurant in February 1974.
- Police observed Wilson wearing a dress, fur coat, stockings, and wig, and observed Kimberley wearing a pants suit, high-heeled shoes, and makeup with a feminine hairstyle.
- At the police station, they were required to pose for photographs while partially undressed; both wore traditionally female undergarments and had male genitalia.
- The City charged them under Chicago Municipal Code § 192-8, which penalized appearing in public “in a dress not belonging to his or her sex, with intent to conceal his or her sex.”
- Both defendants testified they were transsexuals undergoing psychiatric therapy in preparation for sex-reassignment surgery and that the therapy required living publicly in female clothing and adopting a female lifestyle.
- The trial court denied their constitutional motion to dismiss, convicted them after a bench trial, and fined each $100; the appellate court affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether Chicago Municipal Code § 192-8, which criminalized cross-dressing with intent to conceal sex, violated constitutional protections of liberty and privacy as applied to transsexual persons undergoing medically supervised therapy for sex-reassignment.
2. Whether the City’s asserted interests (preventing deception or fraud, aiding law enforcement identification, preventing restroom-related crimes, and enforcing social norms) justified applying the ordinance to the defendants.

## Decision

- The Illinois Supreme Court reversed the appellate and trial court judgments and remanded with directions.
- The court held § 192-8 unconstitutional as applied to Wilson and Kimberley because it impermissibly infringed protected liberty and privacy interests.
- Because the court resolved the case on liberty and privacy grounds, it did not reach additional claims of vagueness, overbreadth, or equal protection violations.
- A dissent would have upheld the ordinance’s application.

## Legal Principles

- Personal appearance and dress may fall within constitutionally protected interests in privacy, self-identity, autonomy, and personal integrity, limiting governmental power to regulate such choices.
- When government regulates conduct tied to intimate personal and medical decision-making, it must provide a sufficient justification; a broad criminal prohibition requires more than generalized assertions of public welfare.
- A “total ban” on cross-dressing in public is not justified, as applied here, by asserted interests in preventing deception, improving suspect descriptions, preventing restroom crimes, or enforcing conventional norms.

## Conclusion

The Illinois Supreme Court held that Chicago could not constitutionally enforce its cross-dressing ordinance against transsexual defendants who publicly dressed as women as part of medically supervised preparation for sex-reassignment surgery, because the ordinance, as applied, violated protected liberty and privacy interests.


City of Chicago v. Wilson, 75 Ill. 2d 525, 389 N.E.2d 522 (1978)