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submitted 2 days ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

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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[-] sugarfoot00@lemmy.ca 51 points 18 hours ago

Trans activists are going about this all wrong. Instead of sending someone like Marcy in to violate the law, they need to do this:

Send in the biggest, burliest, hairiest ftm trans dudes into busy ladies rooms, the room that the state insists he must now legally use. And record the reaction of the women and girls leaving for broadcast media. Because by focussing on mtf trans in ladies rooms, I really feel the dipshits that make these laws haven't thought their cunning plans through very fully.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 20 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

Send in the biggest, burliest, hairiest ftm trans dudes into busy ladies rooms, the room that the state insists he must now legally use.

I mean, that's what we've functionally done. The distinction is that the biggest, burliest, hairiest dude isn't ftm trans, he's a fucking cop.

In an exclusive interview with The Advocate, Morton detailed the humiliating and distressing encounter. She said that she had entered the restroom with her ex-girlfriend, who handed her a tampon, when two male deputies stormed in, shining flashlights into the stall and demanding she exit. Morton, still using the toilet, was stunned.

“They were flashing lights on our feet and saying, ‘You have to get out of here. You have to come out. We need to talk to you,’” Morton said. “I’m telling them, ‘I’m still using the restroom. I’m sitting down, I’m peeing. What is the issue?’”

When she finally exited the stall, she said she lifted her shirt to prove she was not a man, expecting the ordeal to end. Instead, she said one deputy continued to question her appearance, insisting she “looked like a man.” Morton started recording, later posting a 9-second clip to TikTok, where it has since been viewed more than 3.7 million times. “They came in here in the girls’ restroom because I’m a girl and they didn’t think I was a girl, so they tried to come take me away,” she says in the video.

Like, this is the fucking future. The problem is that - outside of specifically LGBTQ media like The Advocate - it gets virtually no press. Cops terrorizing women in the restroom and demanding that they prove they aren't Transgender just aren't something the deeply conservative and heavily Trump-pilled local media oligarchs want appearing on TV.

You get stories like OP's instead, specifically because they do feed into the "Men are trying to sneak into the women's room to attack your daughter/wife/girlfriend"

[-] Fedizen@lemmy.world 8 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

Idk if its any fairer to send trans men in. Plus a pretty girl garners more sympathy.

Realistically trying to make them enforce them with genital inspections is the only thing that will make the public think about the ramifications

Edit: I'm not going to advocate saying this but I think the funniest take would be to say gender restricted bathrooms are part of the gay agenda and if girls and boys can use the same restroom at home they can use them in public.

[-] SassyRamen@lemmy.world 7 points 17 hours ago

You gotta understand that they don't see a pretty girl. What they see is a freak, a pervert, or in my moms words "a demon from the pits of hell".

[-] Fedizen@lemmy.world 2 points 16 hours ago

Idk andrew tate - who is a freak and sex predator attuned to right wing sentiments- begs to differ.

[-] SassyRamen@lemmy.world 1 points 16 hours ago

No. No he doesn't, he plays to their "boys will be boys" montra

[-] Witchfire@lemmy.world 1 points 16 hours ago

Even genital inspections aren't a catch all

[-] IamSparticles@lemmy.zip 28 points 20 hours ago

Someone needs to start printing up massive numbers of posters with that picture of her face and in large bold lettering: "ARRESTED FOR ENTERING A WOMEN'S RESTROOM"

Plaster that shit all over the state. Let people see just how ridiculous and cruel the law is.

[-] barneypiccolo@lemm.ee 15 points 19 hours ago

"He was posing as a women for years, just so he could get into ladies rooms to rape our beautiful MAGA women!" -MAGA Nazis.

Why does he need to "pose" as a woman to do that? Every rapist I've ever heard of was able to practice their hobby without going trans.

[-] Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee 13 points 18 hours ago

You know what is so ironic about this? Right wing jackasses were talking about bring oppressed by transpeople and how they would be arrested and jailed for pronoun errors, but in all the years of the laws being in effect there was not a single arrest of such a thing.

But now within barely a few months of their shit being in power they actually do all the shit they accused others of wanting to do. It really was projection all along.

[-] Elkot@lemmy.world 7 points 18 hours ago

Land of the free eh?

[-] F_OFF_Reddit@lemmy.world 74 points 1 day ago

What you people fail to realize is that this will fix the economy, once all trans people are in jail everything is going to be fucking dandy, no more overpriced eggs, no more wagestealing, no more corruption...

[-] FundMECFSResearch 97 points 1 day ago

“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 58 points 1 day ago

Brave as fuck. I'm terrified for her.

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[-] xorollo@leminal.space 66 points 1 day ago

“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)

[-] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 54 points 1 day ago

“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.

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[-] PunkRockSportsFan@fanaticus.social 280 points 2 days ago

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 207 points 2 days ago

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 73 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

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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[-] CheeseToastie@lazysoci.al 26 points 1 day ago

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

[-] onitoring@feddit.it 1 points 16 hours ago

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

[-] Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 day ago

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?

[-] IamSparticles@lemmy.zip 3 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

These laws are stupid and pointless, full stop. There are already plenty of existing laws against doing the sort of things that would actually be harmful. Just having a law to stop someone from entering the "wrong" restroom is stupid because there are plenty of reasons why someone might need to do so, even if they aren't trans or intersex or whatever. Just entering a restroom is not harmful to anyone. And as you point out, this law doesn't stop them if they have the intent to do harm. All it serves to do is give the people in authority an easy way to punish a group they've identified as "bad".

[-] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 18 points 1 day ago

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

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.

[-] xorollo@leminal.space 19 points 1 day ago

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 83 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

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 72 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

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

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this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2025
913 points (100.0% liked)

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