Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 31, 2023

Frederick Park (right) and Ernest Boulton as Fanny and Stella

Boulton and Park, two Victorian homosexuals from upper-middle-class English families, were cross-dressers and enjoyed playing the women's roles in theatrical performances. Lord Arthur Clinton, Member of Parliament for Newark, entered into a relationship with Boulton. Boulton and Park were arrested in 1870 after leaving a London theatre in drag. They were still in women's dresses the next morning when they appeared in court, where hundreds had gathered. Boulton and Park were charged with conspiracy to commit sodomy, a crime that carried a maximum prison sentence of life with hard labour. They were found not guilty after the prosecution failed to establish that they had anal sex. The judge, Sir Alexander Cockburn, was highly critical of the police investigation. Boulton and Park admitted to appearing in public dressed as women, which was "an offence against public morals and common decency". They were bound over for two years. The case was reported in all the major newspapers, much of it in lurid terms. (Full article...)