Editor’s note: This article has been updated with the cited cause for the arrest of 15 protesters.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Transgender activists staged a sit-in on Thursday inside the women’s bathroom closest to House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office on Capitol Hill, to protest Republican-led efforts to keep transgender people from using restrooms that match their gender identity.

The protest marked a shift in some LGBTQ+ activists’ approach to calling for change ahead of a second Trump administration that is expected to enact harsh anti-LGBTQ+ policies. The sit-in was organized by the Gender Liberation Movement, a volunteer-run grassroots group that previously took to the streets of Washington, D.C. to protest Project 2025, a policy blueprint for a second Trump administration that would dramatically roll back LGBTQ+ rights.

“Democrats, grow a spine! Trans rights are on the line,” they chanted while seated inside the public restroom and outside of Johnson’s office. “Act up, fight back,” they said, echoing the well-known protest slogan of the AIDS activist group ACT UP, and “Speaker Johnson, Nancy Mace, our gender is no debate.” 

Capitol police quickly issued a warning to the protesters — which included U.S. army whistleblower Chelsea Manning alongside author and activist Raquel Willis — to disperse or face arrest, including sexual misconduct charges. Following those warnings, 15 people were arrested on the grounds of illegally protesting inside the Cannon House Office Building, according to the Capitol police. Those protesters were held at the U.S. Capitol police headquarters in D.C. for several hours on Thursday before being released, according to a Gender Liberation Movement spokesperson.

The protest follows Johnson’s announcement in November that transgender women are not allowed to access women’s restrooms and facilities in the Capitol and House buildings — an announcement that was not accompanied with any information about enforcement, or how such a policy would be carried out. The group called for elected officials to block Rep. Nancy Mace’s proposed bill that would ban trans people from bathrooms in museums, national parks and other federal property and for Democratic members of Congress to filibuster and block the bill if or when it comes to a vote. 

“This bathroom sit-in sets an example of the righteous defiance and solidarity needed under a second Trump administration,” Gender Liberation Movement said in a press release, citing support from transgender and cisgender participants. The group said survivors of sexual violence also joined the protest to demand that proponents of bathroom bills stop falsely accusing trans women of endangering cis women when they use women’s facilities.  

Republicans in Congress this year introduced over 80 anti-trans bills, including a measure sponsored by Mace, a South Carolina Republican, to target incoming Democratic Rep. Sarah McBride. None of these bills have been able to pass in a Congress with a Democratically-controlled Senate — but now, as Republicans have taken power in both chambers, these measures have the potential to advance. These federal anti-trans bills would still have to overcome a potential filibuster by Senate Democrats. 

On Wednesday, Willis and other activists with the Gender Liberation Movement, alongside transgender people, their families and allies, stood outside the Supreme Court during oral arguments for U.S. v Skrmetti, a case that will set precedent for gender-affirming care bans across the country. 

“Our folks have to rise up in a new era of radical defiance,” Willis said outside the Supreme Court.