Topless US trans woman charged with indecent exposure as a man
A US transgender woman who stripped to the waist in her local driving authority’s car park and spent 23 days in prison has spoken about her motives, WATE reports.
Andrea Jones took her top off in the Morristown Driver’s License Office in Tennessee to highlight the inconsistent way the state is treating trans people.
At the federal level, Jones is treated as a woman. But at state level, she could not have her sex changed on her driving license.
Jones said: “It’s not right for the state to ask me to be both male and female. A choice needs to be made. They cannot hold me to both standards.
She said the Tennessee Department of Safety did not accept her surgeon’s letter confirming her partial surgery and her Social Security status as a woman, and informed her she would have to give more proof to make the same change on her driver’s license.
Jones says she decided to make a statement by taking her shirt off when she got outside.
The police report said: “Mr. Jones continued to yell that he had the right to show his breasts in public and wanted to be recognized as a female.”
Jones counters: “If I was a male, I had the right to.”
The Tennessee Department of Safety told WATE they would change the sex on a license “if an applicant presents a doctor’s statement indicating that a full sex change has occurred and the procedure is complete.”
While Jones’s surgery was sufficient for the federal government to regard her as a woman, she will remain a man in the eyes of her state.
A court date has been set for 20 December on her charge of indecent exposure.
How did this story make you feel?
