this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2025
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Summary

Marcy Rheintgen, a 20-year-old transgender college student, was arrested at the Florida State Capitol after intentionally entering a women’s restroom in protest of the state’s transgender bathroom law.

Civil rights lawyers say it is the first known arrest under such laws in any U.S. state.

Rheintgen faces a misdemeanor trespassing charge and could face up to 60 days in jail.

Florida is one of only two states to criminalize such acts.

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[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 95 points 1 day ago (1 children)

“I wanted people to see the absurdity of this law in practice,” Rheintgen told The Associated Press. “If I’m a criminal, it’s going to be so hard for me to live a normal life, all because I washed my hands. Like, that’s so insane.”

She’s an absolute legend. Thank you to her for her activism.

[–] suite403@lemmy.world 54 points 1 day ago (28 children)

Brave as fuck. I'm terrified for her.

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[–] xorollo@leminal.space 65 points 1 day ago (2 children)

“I know that you know in your heart that this law is wrong and unjust,” she wrote in her letter to lawmakers. “I know that you know in your heart that transgender people are human too, and that you can’t arrest us away. I know that you know that I have dignity. That’s why I know that you won’t arrest me.”

She wrote a letter and sent to 160 lawmakers letting them know she was going to be doing an act of civil disobedience. Let's elevate this full letter. This is much better than any article about it. (Article is fine)

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[–] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 51 points 1 day ago (3 children)

“The arrest of Marcy Rheintgen is not about safety,” Smith said. “It’s about cruelty, humiliation and the deliberate erosion of human dignity. Transgender people have been using restrooms aligned with their gender for generations without incident. What’s changed is not their presence — it’s a wave of laws designed to intimidate them out of public life.”

It's not. I'm sure the conservative assholes are delighted by this aspect, but the real goal is to distract the plebs with ragebait non-issues so they don't get upset at the actual loss of all the rights, benefits, and government services they rely on.

[–] PunkRockSportsFan@fanaticus.social 279 points 2 days ago (35 children)

They stopped that woman from peeing in a toilet.

Good job. The children are safe.

From her.

Not from school shooters tho. They are still in terrible danger from them.

But at least they won’t have to deal with that woman using the wrong bathroom.

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[–] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 202 points 2 days ago (9 children)

She did this as an act of civil disobedience and let them know in advance she was coming and was going to use the women's restroom.

But imagine she didn't. Instead she went to the capitol, and, following the law, used the male restroom. Just look at her. Do you think she wouldn't have been harassed or possibly arrested for doing so?

In practice, trans bathroom bans work like this:

Use the restroom the law requires you to: get harassed, beat up, and possibly arrested.

Use the restroom that matches your presentation: violate the law, hope no one clocks you, and you don't get arrested.

I'm a trans woman myself. You wouldn't know it if you saw me in public. And I don't even have any ID documents with an "M" on them. If I wanted to obey the Florida bathroom law, I would have to use the men's restroom. But then when I inevitably caused a scene, I wouldn't even be able to show an officer that I was just complying with the law.

Trans bathroom bans are ultimately just a means of driving trans people from public life entirely. Comply with the law? Get assaulted by some chud who thinks you're violating the law. Disobey the law? Risk arrest for actually violating it.

There's a reason labeling this a genocidal movement is not hyperbole.

[–] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 68 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Trans bathroom bans are ultimately just a means of driving trans people from public life entirely.

This is not an exaggeration, the anti-trans movement literally aims to "eradicate [trans people] from public life entirely", those are their words.

Here are some citations, numbers, and evidence to back up what you're saying and why we should view trans bathroom bans as genocidal rather than about safety, like anti-trans activists claim:

When laws permit transgender people to access sex-segregated spaces in accordance with their gender identities, crime rates do not increase. There is no association between trans-inclusive policies and more crime. As one of us wrote in a recent paper, this is likely because, just like cisgender folks, “transgender people use locker rooms and restrooms to change clothes and go to the bathroom,” not for sexual gratification or predatory reasons.

Conversely, when trans people are forced by law to use sex-segregated spaces that align with the sex assigned to them at birth instead of their gender identity, two important facts should be noted.

First, no studies show that violent crime rates against cisgender women and girls in such spaces decrease. In other words, cisgender women and girls are no safer than they would be in the absence of anti-trans laws. Certainly, the possibility exists that a cisgender man might pose as a woman to go into certain spaces under false pretenses. But that same possibility remains regardless of whether transgender people are lawfully permitted in those spaces.

Second, trans people are significantly more likely to be victimized in sex-segregated spaces than are cisgender people. For instance, while incarcerated in facilities designated for men, trans women are nine to 13 times as likely to be sexually assaulted as the men with whom they are boarded.

...

In society at large, between 84% and 90% of all crimes of sexual violence are perpetrated by someone the victim knows, not a stranger lurking in the shadows – or the showers or restroom stalls. But trans and nonbinary people feel very unsafe in bathrooms and locker rooms, though others experience relative safety there. In fact, the largest study of its kind found that upward of 75% of trans men and 64% of trans women reported that they routinely avoid public restrooms to minimize their chances of being harassed or assaulted.

from: https://theconversation.com/baseless-anti-trans-claims-fuel-adoption-of-harmful-laws-two-criminologists-explain-206570

These laws aren't designed to protect cis women, they are designed to police gender (this impacts cis people too!) and eliminate trans people from public life.

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[–] ctkatz@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago

and then there are the opposite cases, where in order to comply with the law, manly masculine men would be forced to use the women's restrooms.

you know, with women.

especially the easily frightened at everything because they have been societally coddled and protected for the entire history of this country white women.

i don't know. I'm not ever going to personally deal with that, but I think that if all trans people were going to comply with these idiotic and pointless laws that don't protect the people they are written to protect the trans women probably would have it easier than trans men. I really don't see too many men being seriously traumatized seeing a woman in the men's room (especially when cis females have used men's rooms with men in them regularly at places like concert venues when the line to the women's room is long or too far away).

but then again I don't really give a shit, just flush and wash your hands.

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[–] CheeseToastie@lazysoci.al 24 points 1 day ago (10 children)

I do NOT want that girl going in a man's bathroom!! If any woman's going to be attacked in a bathroom, it's her... she's young, petite and gorgeous. It's so wrong

[–] Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don't understand the argument for attacks in restrooms. How often does that happen in America?

And how is it that separate washrooms are supposed to prevent it? If a man is going to attack a woman ina restroom, is a sign saying they aren't allowed in really going to stop them if no one else is around?

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[–] onitoring@feddit.it -4 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

she's young, petite and gorgeous. It's so wrong

They deliberately choose that pic so you can sympathize

In real life you can tell she's a trans and not that pretty (by female attractiveness standards)

https://www.advocate.com/news/transgender-woman-arrested-florida-bathroom

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[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 19 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don't want people being attacked in bathrooms period. Men's bathrooms are not supposed to be lawless dens of brutal violence, just places to fucking pee, poop and wash hands.

[–] Paddzr@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I've seen girls that looked below 10 in men's bathroom. The women's had a massive queue. Literaly no one cared, she went into cubicle, came out, washer her hands and left. No drama.

But I guess I live in civilised world.

[–] CalipherJones@lemmy.world 1 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Simple, those girls aren't "different"

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[–] xorollo@leminal.space 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

She is gorgeous, but let's not create a false bar of its ok if you're pretty. We also have a story circulating right now in Florida about a very tall cis woman being harassed for using the women's bathroom and BEING FIRED FROM HER JOB FOR NOT REPORTING IT RIGHT.

We all need a place to take a shit. Pretty or not.

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[–] LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 82 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Bathroom laws are unenforceable and largely function instead like: "conform as closely as possible to gendered expectations of appearance and presentation or get the shit kicked out of you".

This mostly affects cis women. Having broad shoulders and short hair is all it takes really. The more these laws are promoted, the more cis women who don't conform to social body standards for women will suffer. Wearing a skirt and growing your hair long and wearing makeup every single day could legitimately become a matter of your own safety.

Biological gender essentialism is just gender roles all over again. They've packaged it as a way to force trans people out of society, and it does for anyone who can't go stealth. But far more than it affects trans people, it affects cis people. They know that. That's actually the point in the first place. They want to socially enforce patriarchy. The goal is to force women to submit to men and male scrutiny of their gender.

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[–] simplejack@lemmy.world 69 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Conservative bitches are jealous that Marcy is hotter than all of them.

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[–] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 22 points 2 days ago

Fuck Florida. FUCK Florida.

[–] GiveOver@feddit.uk 41 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I've said this before but I really want to hear some stories of trans men using the womens bathroom in these places. Big muscular men with bald heads and beards, barging in pissing everywhere and leaving toilet seats up.

I want to see the meltdown when people find out they're just following the law. Please trans bros do this for me.

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