College student Marcy Rheintgenknew she wasn’t welcome in the women’s room in Florida’s Capitol. But she didn’t expect Capitol Police tohaul her off to jail, or to face the threat of prison time.
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“It was just so scary,” the 20-year-old trans woman said in an exclusive interview with The Advocate. “I’ve been in Florida my whole life, but it’s just getting scarier and scarier to be here.”
Capitol Police arrested Rheintgen on March 19 and charged her with trespassing, a second-degree misdemeanor under Florida law. She ended up in the Leon County Jail for more than 25 hours, and could face 60 days in jail, in the men’s ward, if her case goes to trial later this year.
The arrest has LGBTQ+ advocates in the state decrying the discriminatory arrest and potential prosecution of Rheintgen, who almost certainly would face no charges if she were not transgender.
“The arrest of Marcy Rheintgen is not about safety. It’s about cruelty, humiliation, and the deliberate erosion of human dignity,” said Nadine Smith, executive director ofEquality Florida. “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.”
Rheintgen knew entering the restroom on the second floor of the Capitol. The Illinois woman, who has family in Florida, felt outraged after the statepassed a law that forbids anyone using a bathroom designated for gender that they were not assigned as birth.
Marcy Rheintgen was arrested for using the Florida Capitol restroom.Courtesy Marcy Rheintgen
Rheintgen said she has never considered herself an activist. She has been inspired by trans celebrities like actress Hunter Schaferspeaking out about the direct impacts of reactionary policies on the day-to-day lives of transgender Americans.
“I’m not an intellectual or philosopher,” she said. “I was just upset, it was just the final straw.”
In protest, she telegraphed her intention to pee in the public facility by writing to legislative leaders and telling them the time and specific bathroom she intended to use.
“I was uppity about it,” she said. “I wrote them letters telling them I would do this. But I didn’t think I would be arrested.”
But she was confronted by law enforcement at the restroom, who told her she could not use the facilities. Refusing to back down, she continued to try and enter the lavatory anyway, at which point she was taken into custody and later given a notice to appear in court.
Rheintgen still hasn’t been assigned a public defender, and will decide after consulting with a lawyer what sort of legal strategy to pursue from here. She does say she regrets the defiance, aware now that it could mean prison time.
“I wasn’t expecting them to do anything. I was betting on them not reading their mail, to be real,” she said. “I was also betting on them not to arrest me to make a show, and I expected them not to do it because of compassion.
“If we are arresting trans people that is crazy. If you look at polling, people say our policy on trans issues is too far to the left, but if too far to the left is arresting trans people, what is the right-wing option?”
