Due to a recent federal ruling which overturned the ban on women going topless in public, women in Tenth Circuit states Colo., Okla., Kan., Utah, Wyo., and N.M. could soon have the right to expose their breasts in public without fear of being arrested for indecent exposure.

The ruling comes as a reaction to plaintiffs Britt Hoagland and Samantha Six, who sued Ft. Collins, Colorado over its controversial ban. The plaintiffs also cited social media sites, such as Instagram, that assert that images of exposed breasts go against the community guidelines of the platform. Hoagland and Six decided to challenge the ban in order to take small steps towards increasing the equality between men and women.

“Addressing small parts of inequality can make a big difference in how people are treated on a day to day basis, and I thought Free the Nipple was just one small step closer to how it should be,” stated Hoagland.

The ruling allows women to go topless at public pools, or walk down the street topless but still reserves the right for private businesses to ask that customers cover up. For the most part, the ban being lifted has removed all legal repercussions of exposing the female nipple in public areas.

However, women in the five states might need to wait to exercise their new right, according to a statement released by Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter.

“The Tenth Circuit’s preliminary decision in the Fort Collins case – a case that has now ended without a full adjudication – does not change local and state laws in Oklahoma on the subject,” Hunter said. “The majority of courts around the country that have examined this issue have upheld traditional public decency and public nudity laws,” stated Hunter.

The Supreme Court will announce later this year if it will hear the case.

Freeing The Nipple

Questions over what should be considered public indecency, and if topless bans are constitutional, have always been at the forefront of some protesters’ minds.

The Free the Nipple movement, which gained serious traction in 2012, sought to de-sexualize the female breast and de-objectify the female body in general. With countless topless protests in cities across the world, the movement challenged concepts of decency, equality and personal freedoms. Followers of the movement advocate for women’s breasts to be viewed as a mere body part, as opposed to a sex symbol. People who oppose the movement often cite that exposing breasts in this way is inherently lewd and sexual.

However, supporters believe that women being able to exercise their right to go topless will help to eventually destigmatize and desexualize the female body—whether a woman exposes her breast in public to breastfeed her child, or simply because she wants to.

If the case receives Supreme Court attention, it is likely that it will drastically alter societal norms. And, who knows—Missouri might just be the next state to free the nipple.

Article by Olive Thompson