Suit or Tutu: The Libertarian Party Fights Over Dress Code

Red ties and “MAGA face” — Google it — predominate at GOP conventions. Pantsuits rule the day on the Democratic side. At Libertarian conventions, suits mixed with t-shirts, provocative slogans, and usually a banana hammock or two are getting a second look, and for a whole other reason. Libertarians are bickering over a proposed business casual dress code at the Libertarian Party convention, to be held at Grand Rapids, Michigan, this weekend.To many Libertarian Party members, allowing for free expression in attire is putting principles in practice. To others, those who dress flamboyantly are attention-seeking, distract from convention news coverage, and reaffirm the party’s image as the outlandish stepchild of national politics. “Every single convention we get embarrassed because there’s grown men wearing tutus and fairy wings that make the news, but none of the serious stuff that we actually accomplish and the good work that we’re doing even breaks through the surface,” a Libertarian National Committee member who proposed the dress code policy, Ben Weir, told The New York Sun.Mr. Weir, a Region Six Alternate, sent a letter to the Libertarian National Committee last week asking it to vote on a business-casual dress code for delegates, speakers, and those conducting business on the floor at the upcoming convention. The proposed policy would bar “intentionally disruptive, overtly theatrical, fetish-oriented” clothing and prohibit “biological males” from wearing “dresses, skirts, or attire traditionally recognized as women’s wear while participating in official convention business or addressing the body.”The response to this, particularly the line about biological males, is drawing fury online. “Bite me,” the party’s former National Secretary, Caryn Ann Harlos, posted to X along with a photo of herself with pink hair and a Lady Liberty crown conducting official party business.“It’s just your standard anti-trans dog whistle that some people like to blow,” the party’s 2024 nominee for U.S. president, Chase Oliver, told the Sun. “It does kind of fly against the spirit of free expression that we advocate for at the Libertarian Party so I think if we want to practice what we preach, if people want to wear what they want, I don’t have a problem with that.”“I don’t feel like we need to be the fashion police,” he said.Policing fashion certainly isn’t the Libertarian Party’s forte. Performance artist and perennial candidate, Vermin Supreme, with his signature boot on his head, ran to be the party’s presidential nominee in 2020. Attendees with unusual outfits often dominate news coverage of party affairs.When President Trump spoke at the party’s convention in 2024, security got in a tussle with a longtime party activist named Starchild, who was wearing a wig and a white open shirtdress with undergarments. That scuffle made national news. At the 2016 convention, a candidate for party chairperson, James Weeks, stripped down to his underwear on stage and then dropped out of the race. That too made headlines.“There’s only a handful of eclectic individuals I would say who routinely like to push the envelope when it comes to how they dress,” the chairman of the Libertarian National Committee, Steven Nekhaila, told the Sun.Mr. Nekhaila posted on X, “People who tell you appearances don’t matter are either naïve, coping, or trying to disarm you.” The dress code proposal, if it passes, won’t be enforceable on delegates at this weekend’s convention, Mr. Nekhaila explained. If delegates pass a similar measure at the convention, it could become policy moving forward. Mr. Weir’s proposal is now being amended to remove language about biological males.“We can certainly have aspirational dress codes,” Mr. Nekhaila said. “One thing notable with libertarians is when you tell a libertarian to do something, they often do the opposite.”Mr. Weir said the proposal is “bringing out the absolute most insane side of the party,” and he thinks the fact that he’s from New Hampshire has something to do with the backlash. If the Libertarian Party is the redheaded stepchild, the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire is the child in juvie. The New Hampshire affiliate is known for its intentionally controversial and sometimes hostile X posts on third-rail topics like race and IQ or questioning why the Libertarian Party should exist at all.The Libertarian Party has never elected a candidate to federal office and usually earns one percent of the vote in presidential elections. In recent years, the party has struggled with internal fights among caucuses over whether libertarianism is rightwing or leftwing, how far to wade into culture war issues, and what the party’s function should be in national politics. The former chairwoman, Angela McArdle, who resigned amid lawsuits, sought to use the party’s “spoiler” status to wrest concessions from the Trump campaign, most notably the pardon of libertarian icon and Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who had been serving two life sentences plus 40 years for operating an online black market for hackers, money launderers, and drug smugglers, among others.Mr. Oliver says the party is “in a rebuilding phase” from the conflicts and caucus battles of the last four years. The dress code fight likely reached a fever pitch because of these underlying battles about the character and direction of the party.“We’re never going to get more than 0.5 percent of the vote in any of these races if we keep on having these terrible image problems,” Mr. Weir said. “If you want to play the game of politics, you should try to dress the part.”

Suit or Tutu: The Libertarian Party Fights Over Dress Code

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