Topless sunbathing on the beach is a rite many women around the world enjoy; but the very same act got three activists arrested in the American state of New Hampshire in 2016.

Heidi Lilley, 58, Ginger Pierro, 28, and 27-year-old Kia Sinclair lost a Supreme Court appeal against their convictions for indecent exposure this weekend.

The women argued that the state’s indecency laws discriminate on the basis of gender.

“It’s pathetic how highly sexualized a woman’s breast is,” Lilley tells the New York Times, in a new profile. “I thought that it was necessary that we make a change to that.”

Sinclair points out that even though the state laws made no mention of breasts or nipples, she and the other two women were handcuffed by police and taken to a station in the 2016 incident. This happened after they removed their tops and refused to put them back on when other beach-goers complained.

“When we were driving in the [police] car, there was a guy — totally shirtless — walking outside,” she recalls. “And I was like, ‘Oh, are you going to get him?’”

All three women are part of the Free The Nipple campaign, a global movement that advocates for the right of women to go topless in public.

Free the nipple: meet the women campaigning for the right to go topless