Because patriarchy requires gender binaries to delineate relations of power, cross-dressing laws were put into place to criminalize wearing articles of clothing associated with a gender other than the one assigned at birth.30 Enforcement of patriarchal control over white women’s sexuality and Black women’s labor—along with related anxieties about preserving the “whiteness” of the U.S.—led to the criminalization of prostitution.31 The social purchase of these racist, gendered fantasies also meant that men were not criminalized for raping their wives or for killing someone they found in bed with
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