By Robin Postell
FORT COLLINS, Co. – The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is comprised of Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, Kansas and Oklahoma, has ruled in favor of women legally going topless in public.
That’s right. Topless women. In public. With impunity.
This head-scratcher of a decision comes from a Fort Collins, Colorado city ordinance which forbade women from going shirtless in public being ruled recently as unconstitutional following a multiyear legal battle.
Fort Collins has been wrangling with this court dual since 2015 when activist Britt Hoagland began protesting the ban, citing it as favoring men over women under the law.
Hoagland started the brouhaha to make a point regarding gender equality, leading the city council to update the public indecency ordinance. Hoagland took it a step further in May 2016 with fellow activist Samantha Six and sued the city.
This originally irritating gnat of a courtroom squabble turned into a bigger-fish-to-fry issue when it took on movement status and hashtag heft. The ‘Free the Nipple’ movement, a global gender equality campaign that emphasizes women’s rights to choose how they display their bodies, has given Fort Collins battle fatigue.
The Fort Collins law received its first blow in February, when the 10th Circuit’s ruling determined the law was based on “negative stereotypes depicting women’s breasts, but not men’s breasts, as sex objects.”
Yahoo reported that in the decision, the court also pointed to nearby cities such as Denver and Boulder, both of which allow women to be topless in public. Neither of those towns had women “parading in front of elementary schools or swimming topless in the public pool,” as Fort Collins officials had argued was a risk.
Fort Collins could still appeal but it threw in the towel earlier this month since it had already spent more than $300,000 trying to protect.
IMAGE: Twitter Free the Nipple