A transgender woman is suing the city of Chicago because of a city statute that does not allow women to go topless at bars or clubs that serve alcohol.
Bea Sullivan-Knoff, a 23-year-old transgender who transitioned from male to female, is suing Chicago because he feels that the city statue is discriminatory, reports the Chicago Tribune.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, is fighting against a provision in the city’s liquor code that prevents females from going topless in places that serve alcohol. The lawsuit alleges that it is unfair for men to be able to go shirtless in bars, while women cannot.
Mary Grieb, Sullivan-Knoff’s civil rights attorney, claims that the statue represents old fashioned ideas on sex and gender identity.
“The law itself violates the first amendment. It violates people’s rights for freedom of expression and freedom of speech in their performance,” Grieb said.
Sullivan-Knoff, who does performance art pieces, said that he runs into trouble when he tries to perform at bars.
“It has happened on numerous occasions that I’m told I’m not allowed to do a given performance in a given space. And instead I have to come up with something that isn’t as artistically fulfilling for myself,” Sullivan-Knoff said.
Sullivan-Knoff claims that by performing topless, he will be able to counter the hatred and misconceptions that transgenders sometimes face.
“Since most of this negative rhetoric centers on the specifics of trans bodies, and most times invasively so, I most often perform about the body, which often involves the presence of my nude body or partially nude body onstage, in an attempt to reclaim a part of myself too often taken from me,” Sullivan-Koff said at a news conference.
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