Minneapolis Park Board To Vote On Repealing Topless Ban

Brittany M. Hughes | July 15, 2020
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While the city of Minneapolis wrestles with accusations of police misconduct and the fallout from weeks' worth of riots and unrest, it looks like the city is also grappling with another high-profile problem: whether to let women walk around topless.

Local reports state that the Minneapolis Park Board is set to take up the first vote to repeal a local ordinance outlawing public nudity in local parks this week. Pushed by Commissioner Chris Meyer, the park board is expected to pass the new resolution which nixes part of an old rule that banned women and girls over the age of 10 from baring their breasts in public parks. The original ordinance also bans any person older than 10 from showing their genitals, pubic area, or buttocks. That part of the rule will reportedly be left intact.

The new measure needs three separate votes to pass, with the final vote scheduled for August.

If it’s repealed, the new park rule allowing women to show their breasts in city parks will mesh with a larger Minneapolis city ordinance, which already allows women to go topless in other public spaces.

While the rule is partially aimed at giving women the same freedom to go bare-chested as men, the goal is a bit more expansive than that. The rule is also aimed at (and stay with me here) giving transgender people – namely women who think they’re men – the right to go topless without being penalized for showing anatomy they don’t identify with. 

In response to claims that the new rule would expose young children to even more public nudity, Minneapolis resident Barbara Donaghy blamed “archaic thinking” for the concern.

"It's up to parents and kids to have conversations about that, that’s how we start to breakdown archaic thinking," Donaghy said, according to KARE11.

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