Alabama City Is Taking a 62-Year-Old Grandmother to Trial for Wearing an Inflatable Penis Costume

Update: After indeed taking this offense all the way to trial, 62-year-old Alabamian grandmother Renea Gamble was acquitted of all charges by a judge. The right to wear a penis costume in public, however, was not quite affirmed one way or the other.

If there’s one activity that will always be ill-advised for those looking to avoid harassment or incarceration, but irresistible all the same, it is of course the dread scourge of causing a police officer to feel even a moment of mild embarrassment. It doesn’t matter if you’re simply trying to attend a local No Kings rally in peace; it doesn’t matter if you’re a 62-year-old grandmother; it doesn’t matter if the “obscene” costume you’re wearing is being sold by the local Spirit Halloween outpost down the street for anyone who wants to buy one. Make a cop feel embarrassed, and they’ll obviously have no choice but to immediately escalate things, shove you to the ground, cuff you and stuff you in the back of a squad car while declaring themselves sole moral arbiter of an entire city. This is to be expected in our repressive country, in which even comedic dissent still results in unchecked police violence. What’s really fucked up is when a few months pass, zero cooler heads emerge to prevail, and your Alabama home city decides to take you to trial for the crime of wearing an inflatable penis costume in public.

That’s what has been happening since the fall to Fairhope, Alabama resident Renea Gamble, an American sign language interpreter and grandmother who dared to show up to her local No Kings rally in October wearing the penis costume in question and holding a sign saying “No Dicktator,” only to run into the wrong local cop, who decided this was a grave offense in need of his immediate attention. Police officer Andrew Babb harangued the woman specifically about her costume, telling her “I’m serious as a heart attack” and demanding to knowing “how you would explain to my children what you’re supposed to be.” Less than a minute later, Gamble was on the ground being handcuffed, as Babb insisted to angry onlookers and fellow protestors “that’s not freedom of speech. This is a family town and being dressed like that is not going to be tolerated.” The entire absurd spectacle, including the officers trying and failing to fit the inflated penis costume into the back of multiple squad cars, can be seen in the deeply stupid arrest footage below.

That Gamble would somehow end up arrested for such an incident is dumb but unsurprising–there will always be that impulsive, hot-headed police officer out there who finds a way to insert himself into such a situation, to let his own personal objection to someone’s freedom of expression motivate him to claim that the person in question is a threat (or merely an annoyance) that he needs to address. What is shocking is that Gamble would actually end up charged with anything, when seemingly zero evidence of any kind exists to indicate that she had done anything the least bit wrong, much less had justified any of the action taken against her. This is a textbook example of the type of case that you would expect to see quietly disappear in the wake of public outcry, as a local DA and police station would agree to drop any threatened charges in the interest of not calling down more negative publicity or national attention. That’s what would happen in a sane world. But we don’t live in a sane world, so not only was Gamble charged, but the city actually leveled more additional charges at Gamble earlier this year. Her twice-delayed trial is scheduled to begin next week, on April 15, 2026.

That said, the city of Fairhope’s police and city attorney are at least smart enough to know that they can’t literally write down “was wearing penis costume” as reason for an indictment, so they’ve needed to cook up reason to charge Gamble–it was that, or suffer the mild embarrassment of backing down, and lord knows that wasn’t an option. According to the official police statement, Officer Andrew Babb arrived on the scene of the local No Kings protest that day in response to local complaints of “traffic hazards in the area.” City Attorney Marcus McDowell, who brought charges against Gamble, noted in a filing that members of the public had contacted police and claimed that “a person dressed as a giant penis thereby created a substantial traffic and safety hazard.” Earlier this year, Gamble was hit with additional charges of “disturbing the peace” and “giving a false name to law enforcement,” seemingly in reference to her joking reply when asked for her name of “Aunt Tifa.”

On This Day (Apr 4) in 2026 (4/5)
====================
Renea Gamble
– arrested at Oct 18, 2025 AL No Kings rally
– reason for arrest: her costume
– costume: giant penis

Charges
– disorderly conduct, resisting arrest
– disturbing the peace, giving false name to a cop

– trial begins Apr 15

[image or embed]

— Roman Smith (@romansmith.bsky.social) Apr 4, 2026 at 11:59 PM

Gamble’s civil rights lawyer David Gespass, meanwhile, notes the obvious: While arresting Gamble, the footage makes it perfectly clear that the police were solely concerned about the horror of someone appearing in public in a penis costume, which as previously noted was purchased locally from a Spirit Halloween of all places. Is it legal to sell such a costume, but not to wear it? At no point do the police in the arrest footage note any other illegal offense. Gespass also notes that this is a case where quite clearly, “One would have thought at some point somebody would have decided to dismiss the case,” especially in the wake of widespread public ridicule. The city of Fairhope, however, has instead decided to treat a random No Kings protestor as if they’re a criminal mastermind, seemingly too proud to note even the possibility of a police officer acting rashly. And all the local officials seemingly decided en masse to adopt this obstinate, stupid position, with Fairhope Mayor Sherry Sullivan telling reporters that “This type of behavior or display is not acceptable and will not be tolerated in Fairhope,” with the “behavior or display” in question being “standing on the side of the road holding a sign,” a right guaranteed by the First Amendment. Even the Fairhope City Council President, Jack Burrell, claimed that the costume (and not any behavior of Gamble’s) violated “community standards.”

Gespass has obviously attempted to get the city to see reason and simply dismiss the ludicrous charges filed in November, arguing that Officer Andrew Babb was acting “solely upon his own prejudices,” and that “No provision of Fairhope’s disorderly conduct ordinance applies to what she was doing or wearing when she was arrested.” The judge in the case, Municipal Judge Haymes Snedeker, has denied every motion to avoid a court date in response, as if the city is for some reason fully committed to holding a full trial on this topic–something absolutely guaranteed to garner national headlines. For reasons that are difficult to fathom, it is a priority of Fairhope, Alabama to convict a 62-year-old woman of having the gall to exercise her right to free speech in the most harmless way imaginable.

The legal action taken against Renea Gamble is a microcosm of the personal, petty level that the legal system of the Trump era is willing to stoop to in order to silence even the most insignificant dissent. If wearing a penis costume to a No Kings protest is worthy of criminal charges, then what behavior is actually safe to engage in for a protestor or bystander? The goal, of course, is to chill anyone who wishes to use their voice into being too afraid to do so, to nip dissent in the bud before it ever has a chance to bloom. Let small-town police and small-town courts get away with this, and they’ll just step up their campaigns of intimidation in the future. If Gamble’s case does go to trial, and she is somehow convicted, I hope the streets of Fairhope are covered in a sea of angry dick costumes.