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Marcy Rheintgen; Florida state capitol building
The 21-year-old had alerted authorities she had planned to use the restroom as a protest against the state's anti-trans laws.
A Florida judge dismissed a case against a 21-year-old trans woman who used a restroom in the Florida Capitol in protest of a 2023 law.
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That happened after state prosecutors failed to properly charge Marcy Rheintgen of Illinois, who was arrested in March. Rheintgen notified police and Republican leaders of the Legislature of her intent to use the women’s room at a particular time and date. Police arrested her on a trespassing charge.
Rheintgen was released after one night in jail, according to the Tallahassee Democrat. Prosecutors in Florida’s 2nd Judicial Circuit, where Democrat Jack Campbell serves as State Attorney, initially started reviewing the case for pretrial diversion instead of pursuing a trial.
But records show Rheintgen, who pleaded not guilty, instead asked for a speedy trial.
A deadline for filing charges passed on June 16, and Rheintgen’s public defender filed a motion to dismiss the case entirely on June 18.
Leon County Judge LaShawn Riggans two days later granted that request.
“Charges against Ms. Rheintgen in the above-styled case are to be dismissed and she is to be discharged because the speedy trial period has expired,” the judge wrote.
Riggans, who won election to the county court bench in 2024, previously worked as an assistant state attorney in the circuit. She also serves on the Florida Bar Professional Ethics Committee.
Records show Assistant State Attorney Chapman Evans did file a brief charging Rheintgen with one count of trespassing, but it was not entered into the system until two days after the June 16 deadline.
Of note, prosecutors briefs referred to Rheintgen as “Luke Rheintgen,” the defendant’s name assigned at birth. But the judge’s final order identifies the case as the “State of Florida v. Marcy Rheintgen,” and uses female pronouns throughout.
Rheintgen faced up to 60 days in jail, in the men’s ward, if found guilty of misdemeanor trespassing. She previously told The Advocate she felt inspired to conduct her act of protest by trans actress Hunter Schafer speaking out about the change in gender marker on her passport. That drove home how trans rights are sliding backwards under Republicans.
She told political leaders in Florida in advance about her plans to use the restroom in protest of a 2023 law segregating public restrooms by gender assigned at birth.
“I wrote them letters telling them I would do this. But I didn’t think I would be arrested,” Rheintgen said after her release from jail.
“I wasn’t expecting them to do anything. I was betting on them not reading their mail, to be real. 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."
