Florida Capitol Police arrested a transgender woman for using the women's restroom under HB 1521
On March 19, 2025, Florida Capitol Police arrested Marcy Rheintgen, a 20-year-old transgender college student, for using the women's restroom at the Florida Capitol in Tallahassee, in a planned act of civil disobedience against HB 1521's facility-access ban. She was charged with misdemeanor trespassing and held for 24 hours in the men's ward before her release. Advocates said it was the first known arrest under any state's criminal ban on transgender bathroom use; the case was dismissed in June 2025 after prosecutors missed the deadline to file charging documents.
Actors
- Florida Capitol Police
On March 19, 2025, Florida Capitol Police arrested Marcy Rheintgen, a 20-year-old transgender college student from Illinois, for using the women's restroom at the Florida Capitol in Tallahassee. The arrest was the culmination of a planned act of civil disobedience: Rheintgen had sent letters to all 160 Florida legislators beforehand informing them she intended to enter the women's restroom in violation of HB 1521, the 2023 law making it a criminal trespass for a transgender person to use a facility inconsistent with their sex assigned at birth. Capitol police were alerted and waiting for her; officers warned her she would receive a trespass warning, then arrested her when she declined to leave. "I wanted people to see the absurdity of this law in practice," she said.
Rheintgen was charged with misdemeanor trespassing, punishable by up to 60 days in jail, rather than a direct HB 1521 violation, and was held for 24 hours in the men's ward before release on pretrial conditions. The ACLU said it was the first arrest it was aware of under any state's criminal ban on transgender bathroom use; only Florida and Utah criminalize such violations. Equality Florida executive director Nadine Smith said the arrest was "not about safety" but "about cruelty, humiliation" intended to intimidate transgender people out of public life.
Updates
2025-06-20 — Case dismissed after prosecutors missed filing deadline [4]
A Leon County judge dismissed the trespassing case against Rheintgen after state prosecutors failed to file the required charging documents within the mandatory 90-day window.
Why we recorded this
A law criminalizing which restroom a transgender person may use turns an everyday act into a jailable offense, and using that law to arrest someone for peacefully protesting it compounds a discriminatory policy with a discriminatory prosecution. Florida Capitol Police arrested a transgender woman for using the Capitol's women's restroom, holding her in the men's ward for 24 hours; the state later failed to meet its own filing deadline and the case was dismissed. This archive records when a state enforces a facilities-access law against a member of the group it targets, in what advocates said was the first known arrest under any state's criminal transgender-bathroom-use ban.
Sources
- Trans student's arrest for violating Florida bathroom law is thought to be a first — NBC News investigative accessed July 19, 2026
- Transgender woman arrested after using restroom at Florida Capitol — WUSF investigative accessed July 19, 2026
- Statement on the Arrest of Marcy Rheintgen — Equality Florida secondary accessed July 19, 2026
- Judge dismisses case against trans woman who tried to challenge Florida's bathroom law — Reason investigative accessed July 19, 2026
See also
- Kansas Legislature overrode Gov. Kelly's veto to enact SB63, banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors
- Rubio issued State Dept cable directing consulates to deny visas and impose permanent fraud bar on transgender applicants
- Wyoming enacted SF0077 barring state and local government from requiring employees to use colleagues' preferred pronouns
- Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed SF418, making Iowa the first state to remove gender identity from its civil rights code
- Wyoming Gov. Gordon signed HB 72 requiring birth-sex use of public restrooms, prison sleeping quarters, and college facilities
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