The youngest of nine children, Cooper only started identifying as transgender the year of her arrest. “We as a society should be a whole lot more proactive about righting past wrongs, which are all too easy to ignore.” Shouldering the guilt of convictionĬooper is among those who still live with the ramifications of a conviction and whose existence continues to be shaped by the legacy of sodomy laws. “Surprising as it may be, there is no automatic right to have a conviction vacated if the law under which a person was convicted is subsequently invalidated,” said Daniel A Horwitz, a Nashville-based constitutional lawyer involved in expunging local sodomy law cases. Federal law may have changed – but in many cases, criminal records and state law books did not.
But just because they were nullified did not mean they ceased to have an impact. In specifically criminalising oral and anal sex, advocates have long argued that sodomy laws were tools for discrimination against the LGBTQ community, even in cases where sexual orientation was not written into the law itself.Ĭooper has been fighting to repeal Louisiana’s Crimes Against Nature laws since her conviction in 1999 īy 2003, four years after Cooper was charged, the Supreme Court case Lawrence v Texas would designate sodomy laws unconstitutional, a violation of “the right to liberty under the due process clause”. Cooper was about to have her first encounter with Louisiana’s Crimes Against Nature laws, part of a web of so-called sodomy laws that once existed across the United States.
“He was like, ‘You’re under arrest.’ I’m like, ‘For what?'” That is when she says he reached for his wallet, as if to get some paper and a pen. She says she tried to dodge the topic: She was not interested in trading money for sex. Then he brought money into the conversation. But once she was in the car, “he started talking about oral sex and anal sex and stuff like that”. She thought she could trust him.Ĭooper says the conversation started ordinarily enough. When he asked her to hop inside the car, it did not feel uncomfortable or dangerous.
She remembers him circling the block, easy to spot in his police cruiser. But it felt so good to draw the attention of this tall, handsome man, talking through the window of his car.Ĭooper says she did not think much of the fact that he was a police officer. She always knew she was meant to live life as a woman. She figured he was just another man, attracted to the woman he saw.Ĭooper remembers that she wore her brown hair cropped short, just the way she liked it, and a borrowed knee-length skirt, white with a blue stripe, and a matching top.
PICTURES OF GAY MEN FIGHTING DRIVER
It did not surprise her when another vehicle slowed to a crawl beside her, its driver trying to chat her up.
PICTURES OF GAY MEN FIGHTING WINDOWS
Because that night, when men leaned out of their car windows that evening to tell her, “You look good, boo,” she knew it was true. The dance floor was calling, car horns were blaring, and her friends were waiting in New Orleans’s Vibe nightclub a couple of blocks away.Ĭooper planned to arrive late, though. You were absolutely right.”īut that night, Wendi Cooper remembers walking down the street with the confidence that she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Even today, she tells her sister: “You were right.