The Chicana butch lesbian who defied the LAPD - and won: 'I couldn't be someone else'

From the age of 17, Nancy Valverde was repeatedly arrested by the Los Angeles police department for wearing masculine clothing. By the time she died, at age 92, the city had named a square in her honor, its first public monument to a lesbian.

Valverde, a proud Chicana butch lesbian, had refused to conform to social norms, even in the 1940s and 50s, when the city’s racist and homophobic police force frequently arrested people under anti-“masquerading” laws that criminalized them for wearing clothes officers judged to be unsuited to their gender.

“They wanted me to be someone else. I could not be someone else. This is me,” Valverde said in a short documentary film about her life.

As states across the US pass laws criminalizing drag performances and banning gender-affirming healthcare for trans youth, Valverde’s battle against police harassment feels deeply relevant, said the director Gregorio Davila, who featured Valverde in his documentary LA: a Queer History, and also created an award-winning documentary short about her.

Valverde became a queer Los Angeles icon for her early resistance efforts and her refusal to hide who she was, even at a time when many people were afraid to be gay in public. For decades, butch lesbians and other gender-nonconforming people could be arrested for their clothing choices not only in Los Angeles, but across the country.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/07/nancy-valverde-los-angeles-lesbian-lgbtq-rights

Raise a glass to Nancy Valverde, one woman who gave us ALL the right to dress the way we are!