What happens when you’re arrested for peeing while trans?

Back in May, a trans man named Luca used a women’s bathroom at a bar in South Carolina. The men’s room didn’t have a toilet, so Luca asked permission from the bar’s owner to use the women’s restroom, which he received.

But when a random intruder called him out for using the “wrong” restroom, Luca ended up being arrested, manhandled by police, pelted with slurs, and sent to a courtroom to appear before a judge.

Now, he’s back with an update.

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“I know I went a little bit MIA,” Luca explains, “and that’s because I needed to protect my own mental health.” After the incident, Luca was able to crowdsource the funds he needed to move to California, where he’s planning on relocating next year.

However, because the court insisted that Luca’s case go to trial, he’s currently stuck in limbo—aka South Carolina—where he awaiting his court date. “I don’t even have a date on that,” he says. “I’m gonna give it about six months, and then I’m going to get out of here.”

Not only did Luca have to have his rights attacked for using the bathroom state law requires he use, he’s now forced to stay for months in a place where it’s no longer safe for him to pee legally. All so he can go to trial for… peeing legally.

If it sounds Kafka-esque, that’s because it is. Ever since trans people in bathrooms became a handy dog whistle and conservative talking point, we’ve seen several stories about ordinary people suddenly self-deputizing themselves as anti-trans bathroom police.

Luca is only one examples from this year. In March, a trans woman was arrested simply for using the bathroom in the Florida state capitol building in protest against the country’s sweeping anti-trans laws, many of which concern public restroom access. The 20-year-old woman was led out of the bathroom in handcuffs. She was later sent to a men’s prison.

It’s not just trans people who are affected, either. In February, a cis lesbian was accused of using the “wrong” bathroom simply for presenting as masculine. In May, two cis lesbians were told they couldn’t use the women’s restroom at the Boston hotel they were staying at, also due to their nontraditional gender presentation.

Back in 2015, when Gavin Grimm fought for the right to use the correct bathroom in his high school, the “issue” of trans people using public restrooms started gaining traction as a hot button political issue. Now, in a year that’s seen a shocking rise in anti-trans legislature and hate incidents, we’re seeing how bathroom panic has escalated to a point of dangerous absurdity.

A 2015 survey showed that 59% of trans people reported avoiding using a public bathroom out of fear of a confrontation. We’re now seeing just how justified those fears are.

As trans activist Kayden X. Coleman recently explained regarding another piece of anti-trans bathroom legislature in Texas, there’s no way to check someone’s gender at the door, and we shouldn’t be encouraging people to police others in their use of public restrooms. Yet that’s exactly what this kind of legislation encourages.

“If you are a cisgender or non-trans woman and you do not meet societal standards of what feminine looks like,” Coleman says, “you are going to be the one that’s policed the most.”

For most people with common sense, it’s clear that these laws were never about protecting girls and women. And as Luca’s story shows, they’re not even about forcing trans people to revert to their assigned-at-birth gender when using the restroom. They’re about making a public example of trans folks and anyone else who isn’t performing their gender in a traditional way, and they’re bringing out the absolute worst in people who were already awful to begin with.

“I’m not going to stop talking about this,” Luca says. “I don’t want to stop talking about this. I hope that this keeps getting even more attention, whether that be from the media or locally.”

Luca still intends to relocate to California when he can finally put the court case behind him.

“I want to personally keep living my life and making videos about being…a redneck trans guy who’s about to be a redneck transplant,” he says.

If there’s any silver lining in all this, it’s exactly that. Trans people are going to keep living their lives in the open no matter how hard it gets, and that’s the thing our opps hate to see most of all.

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