In spite of the decriminalization of sodomy in 1791, and the lofty language of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, cross dressing was criminalized in 1853.

France was a morally conservative country at the middle of the 19th century, even eliminating divorce between 1816 and 1884. During the Second Empire under Napoleon III, this moral conservatism and an increasingly law-and-order attitude took the form of a law against cross-dressing passed in 1853 in order to keep sodomites from parading their gender non-conformity in public, and to prevent women from "passing" and acquiring the perquisites - including jobs - that belonged only to men.

Sources and Further Reading

Rosario, Vernon, 1996. "Pointy Penises, Fashion Crimes, and Hysterical Mollies" in Jeffrey Merrick and Bryant Ragan, eds., 1996. Homosexuality in Modern France. NY: Oxford University Press.

Zeldin, Theodore, 1973. France: 1848-1945. London: Oxford University Press.