http://www.lifeinitaly.com/news/news-detailed.asp?newsid=4004

Read the story
PS I hope that is not him in the news agency picture because it look quite attractive to me :(

CROSS-DRESSING COP SACKED


(ANSA) - Venice, December 28 - An Italian police officer
has been sacked for cross-dressing when not on duty.
The unidentified officer, a deputy superintendent, was
fired after he was seen on several occasions in Venice city
centre wearing a mini-skirt, long earrings and a skimpy
T-shirt aimed at showing off his navel.
The man tried to get his job back by appealing to a
local court, arguing that his off-duty apparel was his own
business.
But the judges upheld the dismissal.
In announcing its decision to sack the officer, the
local police chief said the man had shown "total disrespect
for the force and no sense of honour or moral values".
The officer's neighbours had also complained about his
habit of washing his car in his swimming trunks, which he
sometimes removed, the police said.

GEE

It is true that a people have a right to freedom of dressing up any which way they want, and cross-dressing is neither uncommon, nor recent.

The policeman was cross-dressing on his own time, not government time, so one may say that his department should not have taken such a drastic measure as long as he kept his dressing habits separate from work.

But on the other hand, the policeman, like it or not, is a public figure, who works in the public space, and has to interact with the public in the course of his job. Further, his role is to prevent any departure from law, he is seen to be the defender of the good. So his image is important. If he had kept his cross-dressing activities to his bedroom and kept it as a matter of private pleasure, I am sure the authorities need not have publicly renounced him. But he took his cross-dressing public, and I feel the authorities are justified in acting as they did in order to maintain dignity and discipline in the police department.