Free the nipple! Minnesota Dem says women should be able to go topless after ... trends now
Democrats in Minnesota are chafing at the 'antiquated' law that prevents women going topless in public after one was jailed for 90 days after exposing herself at a gas station.
Eloisa Plancarte, 27, told police 'Catholic girls do it all the time' as they questioned her at the Kwik Trip in Rochester in July 2021.
She appealed against her conviction claiming a man would not have been arrested that the prosecution violated her constitutional right to equal protection under the law.
She lost the appeal last month on a narrow 2-1 decision and Minnesota House Rep Samantha Sencer-Mura has now pledged to change the law.
'This to me seems really wrong,' she told The Star Tribune, 'Particularly now, as we as a society are thinking differently about gender and gender identity, I think this law feels very antiquated.'
Minnesota Democratic House Rep Samantha Sencer-Mura says women should be as free as men to expose their chests in public without fear of prosecution
The Representative was moved by the case of Eloisa Plancarte after she was jailed for 90 days for indecent exposure at a Rochester gas station
Protests against 'discriminatory' indecency laws have been gathering strength for years, including this demonstration in Minnesota in 2015
Minnesota law defines indecent exposure as an incident where someone 'willfully and lewdly exposes the person's body, or the private parts thereof'.
But there have been periodic protests both in the US and abroad at women's chests being deemed private when men's are not.
Dissenting judge Diane B Bratvold said that the decision 'raises more questions about criminal conduct than it clarifies', and that the growing prominence of transsexuals men and women is likely to throw another spanner in works.
'Every year, viewers of the Academy Awards and New York Fashion Week observe a variety of fashions that expose breasts to varying degrees,' she wrote.
'How does the majority's rule apply to a person whose gender identity differs from their sex
