Trans Woman Who Fled ‘Trump’s America’ Returns: ‘Dumbest Thing I’ve Ever Done’

Trans Woman Who Fled ‘Trump’s America’ Returns: ‘Dumbest Thing I’ve Ever Done’

Transgender software engineer Jane-Michelle Arc, who transitioned from a man to a woman in 2012, was distraught over President Donald Trump’s triumphant return to the White House. As a trans woman, he feared for his safety.

The Daily Mail reported, “after Trump’s re-election, she feared losing protections in jobs, housing and healthcare. When her passport renewal threatened to erase her legal identity, she chose to leave the US.”

Convinced that claiming asylum in the Netherlands was a good idea, he flew from California to Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in April 2025 and requested asylum upon arrival.

Arc, 48, was sent to the Ter Apel asylum center, where he quickly discovered that, for all his fears about the “hostile environment” for transgender people in Trump’s America, life back home was considerably better than life in a European refugee camp.

After 15 months, he returned to America and told reporters that leaving the U.S. had been the “dumbest thing I’ve ever done.”

I would argue that it was the second dumbest thing he ever did. As I see it, his decision to transition from a biological male into a transgender woman was the dumbest thing he ever did.

Before leaving the Netherlands, Arc shared his experiences at Ter Apel with several media outlets. His accounts of life there make for an ironic counterpoint to all the caterwauling over the supposed erosion of transgender rights under the Trump administration. It took life in a European refugee camp for Arc to discover just how much freedom and security he had left behind in Trump’s America.

[Spoiler alert: Safe once again on American soil, Arc has already found plenty to complain about. But I digress.]

In an interview with The Guardian, Arc noted that people were shocked he left the U.S. He claimed that “a lot of people” told him, “‘You are an idiot. You came here from America.’ People will [ask] me: ‘Did you think about moving to California?’ And then I say: ‘Well, I lived in San Francisco’ and then they go: ‘Oh, that’s a heaven for gay people.’”

According to The New York Post, the Dutch government has declared the area surrounding the camp “a safety risk zone following a series of stabbings and fights.”

Apparently, Arc agreed with that assessment. Before leaving the Netherlands, he told Dutch outlet Pow News, “It is too dangerous to walk to the grocery store because of the people that live in the camp and I’m one of them, I live here.” He added, “You see these guys in yellow vests, they actually wear them because there are so many stabbings.”

Arc noted, “The situation I have in the US as a trans person, not good, right? But here, I will be hurt or killed.”

He said that aside from the camp’s prison-like living conditions, what troubled her most was the “anti-trans hostility from other asylum seekers,” most of whom came from Syria, Eritrea, Somalia, Turkey, Algeria, and Morocco. What did he expect?

The Daily Mail published several excerpts from a Substack post Arc had written shortly after he arrived at Ter Apel.

On his first night, Arc described an almost palpable sense of relief at having escaped the fears and anxieties that had weighed on him in California. He wrote:

I am not afraid someone is going to threaten to kill me while screaming slurs at me outside this door. I am not afraid I will be arrested and killed in a men’s jail for peeing in a public restroom. I am not afraid that one group of people is using me as a pawn in a greater ideological war against another group of people.

I can’t describe the feeling of that stuff not being on my shoulders. It’s been there now for a long time.

Within a few days, however, her tone changed slightly. She wrote: “This place is f**king dire, and it has problems. But hate and aggression aren’t the problems.”

In a slightly later post (during Arc’s first month in the camp), he said he missed California, and perhaps was already beginning to grasp the enormity of the mistake he had made.

I feel California in my bones. So deeply. I need California in a way I struggle to describe because it is so deep and elemental and romantic and passionate and good and true it just stops meaning anything because it means everything. And I left, man, I left California.

Transgender American who fled US admits it was 'the dumbest thing' as returns home from European asylum center https://t.co/HhONKMfETO pic.twitter.com/BlOn1QEKgY

— New York Post (@nypost) August 9, 2026

But now that Arc is back on U.S. soil and no longer has to worry about getting stabbed on his way to the grocery store, he’s complaining again on his Threads account about everything from expensive grocery prices and “overt” transphobia to how loud and overwhelming America is.

Here are a few excerpts:

First time shopping in the US, and In-N-Out too. America is really, really loud and overwhelming. And everything is so expensive.

The Dutch complain about groceries being expensive, but good grief, San Francisco is a whole different experience.

I have my gripes with the Dutch healthcare system. And I know what I like about the American healthcare system. The ways in which the US system are bad are very, very bad. The ways in which the Dutch system are bad are “bad,” but not the way the US is.

I feel like healthcare is something humanity decided to just make worse on purpose because it seems like we know what we want and need from healthcare as a species.

Transphobia is quite overt. Which is the way it was before I left. America isn’t supposed to be like this. I wish society gave a s**t.

Arc fled the U.S. because he felt life here had become intolerable. He sought refuge in the Netherlands, only to discover that the place he had fled was considerably safer and more welcoming than the refuge he had chosen. So he returned.

Now, once again, America is falling short of his expectations. Perhaps he should set more realistic expectations.

Transgender man who fled the U.S. over Trump’s trans policies RETURNS to America after fearing for his safety in Arab refugee camp.

Jane-Michelle Arc fled to Ter Apel, the largest refugee camp in the Netherlands following Trump’s election- claiming he feared for his ‘safety’ in… pic.twitter.com/vMAMzwCN4M

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) August 9, 2026

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