Florida police recently arrested a transgender woman for using the women’s restroom in the state Capitol in Tallahassee, in what is believed to be the first such arrest in a state with an anti-trans bathroom ban.

Marcy Rheintgen, a 20-year-old college student and Illinois resident, was arrested March 19 on a trespassing charge after she used a women’s restroom in a protest against Florida’s law barring people from using bathrooms that don’t align with their assigned sex at birth in government-owned or -leased buildings.

According to The Associated Press, Rheintgen had sent letters to every Florida state lawmaker to inform them that she planned to use a restroom at the statehouse that corresponded with her gender identity. She included a photo of herself for identification, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

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

Jon Davidson, a senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, told the AP that Rheintgen’s arrest is the first of its kind that ACLU’s attorneys are aware of in any state with a bathroom ban.

Rheintgen, who the AP reported had been visiting her grandparents, was freed on pretrial release the day after her arrest, according to the Miami Herald. If convicted on the misdemeanor trespassing charge, she could face up to 60 days in jail.

Rheintgen told the AP that she wanted to show “the absurdity of this law in practice.”

“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,” she said, adding that she was “horrified and scared” over what might happen next.

Nadine Smith, the executive director of Equality Florida, an LGBTQ civil rights organization, said in a statement that Rheintgen’s arrest was not about safety, but “about cruelty, humiliation, and the deliberate erosion of human dignity.”

“Transgender people have been using restrooms aligned with their gender for generations without incident,” Smith wrote. “What’s changed is not their presence — it’s a wave of laws designed to intimidate them out of public life.”

Florida is one of more than a dozen states with a bathroom ban, though Utah is the only other state to criminalize the act. In recent years, GOP lawmakers across the country have passed legislation to crack down on trans rights and strip protections — a pattern that the Trump administration has mirrored on the federal level as well.

Condo prices are plummeting across Florida as homeowners flood the market with new inventory in a last-ditch attempt to escape rising fees on their units, according to new Redfin data.

Eight out of the 10 U.S. metropolitan areas with the highest share of condos sold below their original list price in February were in the Sunshine State, a report showed, with Miami topping the list. A staggering 92.5 percent of condo owners in the South Florida city fetched less than they were hoping for when selling their units.

Why It Matters

Rising homeowners insurance costs and homeowner association (HOA) fees across the country have slowed down the condo market at the national level. In February, 68.4 percent of U.S. condos sold for less than their original asking price, up from 63.3 percent a year earlier.

The situation is particularly severe in Florida, where a new building safety law requiring regular inspections and reserve funds for repairs on aging condos three or more stories tall is bringing up fees beyond what many can afford.

What To Know

Redfin analyzed 52 metros that had at least 100 condo sales in February and found that Miami had the highest share of homes sold below the original list price, at 92.5 percent. Condos in the city sold for 8.7 percent less than their original asking prices.

Six other Florida cities followed: Fort Lauderdale (92.1 percent), West Palm Beach (91.1 percent), Cape Coral (90.4 percent), Jacksonville (89.8 percent), North Port (87 percent) and Tampa (86.7 percent).

Dallas, Texas, had the eighth-highest share of condos selling for less than their original asking price, at 85.7 percent. It was followed by Orlando, Florida, at 84.8 percent and Houston, Texas, at 84.3 percent.

In almost all the Florida cities listed in the top 10, with the exception of Miami and Jacksonville, the median original list price of a home had dropped in February compared to a year earlier.

In Miami, the median original list price in February was $450,000, up 7.9 percent year over year. In Fort Lauderdale, it was $257,000, down 3 percent year over year. In West Palm Beach, it was $290,000, down 4.1 percent. In Cape Coral, it was $339,000, down 5.7 percent. In North Port, it was $341,997, down 11.2 percent. In Tampa, it was $249,000, down 6 percent. In Orlando, it was $238,710, down 0.5 percent.

In Jacksonville, the median original list price of a condo was $287,900, up 3.2 percent from February 2024.

In Fort Lauderdale, condos sold for an average 11.3 percent less in February than a year earlier; in West Palm Beach, for 12.3 percent less; in Cape Coral, for 10.3 percent less; in Jacksonville, for 8.3 percent less; in North Port, for 9.4 percent less; in Tampa, for 10 percent less; and in Orlando, for 9.2 percent less.

What People Are Saying

Tim Harper, a Redfin Premier real estate agent in the Orlando metro area, said in a statement: “The Florida condo market is in uncharted territory. We’re seeing a massive influx of condo inventory because a lot of senior citizens on fixed incomes can no longer afford their monthly payments, and a lot of other condo owners just want to move because they’re tired of dealing with rising HOA fees and special assessments.”

Alison Williams, a Redfin Premier agent from Sacramento, California, said: “Oh condos. Poor condos. HOA dues are just going up and up and up, primarily because insurance costs for homeowners associations are going up. When you buy a $400,000 condo, it often means paying a $500 monthly HOA fee, so for many people, it’s not really that affordable anymore. Some buyers are looking to small single-family homes instead because there’s no HOA.”

Asad Khan, a Redfin senior economist, said: “The good news if you’re a prospective condo buyer is that sale prices are now falling in some areas, and sellers are offering up concessions, meaning you might be able to get a good deal. If you’ve been priced out of owning a condo, know that rents are hovering below their pandemic highs thanks to an apartment building boom, so renters may also find success asking for concessions.”

What Happens Next

While the U.S. condo market is slowing down across the country because of growing inventory, elevated prices and stubbornly high mortgage rates are dampening demand, meaning Florida is facing something of a crisis.

Many of the units for sale on the market are struggling to find interested buyers, and inventory piling up on the market is forcing sellers to considerably slash prices. The crisis building in Florida threatens to destroy the state’s reputation as a haven for retirees and snowbirds.

The Florida Senate passed a large education package Thursday that would reduce the impact of standardized testing when it comes to graduation requirements.

The legislation, sponsored by Tallahassee Republican Senator Corey Simon, would no longer require high school students to pass Algebra 1 and the Grade 10 English Language Arts Assessments to earn a high school diploma.

Additionally, it would allow 3rd graders to advance grades even if they failed their reading assessment as long as they passed two previous progress monitoring assessments throughout the year.

Simon said the changes will allow students who get testing anxiety to advance.

“What we’re able to do is look at that data and say, ‘Okay, this kid just had a bad day testing.’ And that happens for some of our kids. Some of our kids just struggle with our tests. But the track record for that student over eight, nine years, we should be able to determine if a kid is on grade level and is mastering the material and just had a bad day,” he said.

The policy is a change in direction from the Republican-controlled body, that since the early 2000’s has championed those assessments. Simon said the current system has led to an emphasis on teaching for the test and contributed to why only a little over half of Florida kids are reading on grade level.

“What we’ve currently been doing, we’ve just been testing our kids and testing our kids, we have to really take a honest look at our education system. If 98% of our teachers are effective or highly effective, but only 53% of our kids are reading on grade level, there’s a problem there,” he said.

His bill has received bipartisan support. Tamarac Democratic Senator Rosalind Osgood said before the vote on the bill that reducing the stakes of the tests is the right move.

“Eliminating high stakes testing for graduation around the Algebra 1 end of year course exam and 10th grade ELA will go a long way in helping our students,” she said.

No House version of this bill has emerged, but that doesn’t mean it’s dead. It’s been an issue Senate President Ben Albritton has heavily messaged on, meaning it could be one of his chamber’s biggest asks when negotiations between the House and Senate begin to happen near the end of session.