Houston Cross-dress Ordinance

Attorney, Phyllis Frye

30 years ago, after 3 1/2 years of lobbying to repeal an ordinance used to harass females wearing fly-fronted pants, Mayor pro tem Johnny Goyen signed the ordinance repealing Houston's Anti-Cross Dressing Ordinance. This is not a joke! At that time women were expected to have their zippers on the side or in the back, otherwise, they were cross dressing. This led to constant harassment and several arrests for trans identified women, lesbians and anyone else the vice squad did not approve of.

On August the 12th, 1980, after several delay-tags that were put on to the repeal ordinance, it was again before Council. At the time, our Mayor was Jim McConn. He was out of town, as was Jim Westmoreland. McConn knew that it was coming up on the agenda, and he had told the Mayor pro tem for that day, Johnny Goyen, that it was alright with him. City Secretary, Anna Russell, waited until Council members Homer Ford and Larry McKaskell were on the phone. When they got on the phone, she immediately handed the repeal to Johnny. You see, the deal is that under council rules if you're present and you don't vote no, then it's an automatic yes vote. Homer and Larry were on the phone. They didn't even know what was going on. There was only one no vote, and that was Council member Christen Hartung, she was the sole and only no vote. I still hope that somebody will beat her. Homer and Larry went to Johnny about five minutes later, and Johnny says, "oh, I didn't know that was going through." The ordinance was repealed and it has remained so to this day.


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