Jane-Michelle Arc fled the U.S. fearing for her safety as a transgender woman, only to find herself desperate to return home after a harrowing experience at a Dutch asylum center.
Now back in San Francisco, the 48-year-old software engineer has called her decision to seek asylum in Europe “the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.”
Reacting to her ordeal, one person wrote online, “The grass isn’t always greener on the other side.”
Jane-Michelle Arc fled San Francisco to seek asylum in the Netherlands as a transgender woman
Her experiences of harassment and hostility fueled Arc’s decision to leave the U.S. as a transgender woman, particularly one encounter outside her San Francisco home that became a turning point.
Jane said a woman in a truck threatened her while she was crossing the street, an experience she described as “life-changing.”
She also said harassment had made ordinary activities increasingly difficult, including using public women’s restrooms.
At one point, she stopped leaving home unless an Uber was waiting outside.
Following the 2024 presidential election, she became increasingly worried that political changes could further affect transgender people’s rights and access to protections.
She told the Guardian in an interview, “I did it because I was afraid for my life. I didn’t do this in secret. I talked to everybody I knew. I said, ‘I am planning to do this wildly stupid thing.’”
“I did it because I was afraid for my life…” the 48-year-old said, reflecting on what drove her to leave the U.S.
Arc eventually arrived at Ter Apel, the Netherlands’ largest refugee reception center, expecting to find a safer environment.
Instead, she described the experience as deeply frightening, particularly because of the hostility she said she encountered from some other residents.
“The situation I have in the US as a trans person, not good, right? But here, I will be hurt or ki**ed,” Arc told Dutch outlet Pow News.
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
The area surrounding Ter Apel was reportedly declared a safety-risk zone following multiple reports of violence.
Arc said she became so concerned about her surroundings that even walking to a nearby grocery store felt unsafe.
She said, “It is too dangerous to walk to the grocery store because of the people that live in the camp… there are so many stabbings.”
Her experience was further complicated by the fact that she was seeking asylum as a U.S. citizen, despite the Netherlands generally treating the U.S. as a safe country of origin.
American applicants face a particularly high bar when trying to establish that they qualify for international protection.
Arc’s asylum bid hit a major legal hurdle before she ultimately decided to return home for good
General concerns about political developments or discrimination may not, on their own, satisfy the legal threshold for asylum.
For Jane, the combination of that uncertainty and her experience at Ter Apel eventually became too much to bear.
She returned to California in July, but her homecoming did not mean she suddenly felt that everything in the U.S. was fine.
According to the New York Post, Arc wrote on social media after returning home, “America is really, really loud and overwhelming. And everything is so expensive.”
She also acknowledged that she felt more “comfortable” back home while continuing to describe the “transphobia” she encountered as “quite overt.”
Thousands of trans Americans are relocating, but most aren’t leaving the country due to practical and legal barriers
According to multiple studies, domestic migration is far more common among transgender Americans than seeking asylum abroad.
A Movement Advancement Project and NORC survey found that 9% of transgender adults had moved to another state since the November 2024 election because of reported hostile political climates.
The Williams Institute has also reported that 48% of trans adults surveyed had either moved or were considering moving to a state they viewed as more affirming.
International relocation, meanwhile, comes with substantial financial and legal barriers.
The Williams Institute found that 82% of respondents who wanted to leave the U.S. cited the cost of moving abroad as a barrier.
Arc’s experience therefore highlights a difficult reality: despite wanting to leave, being able to establish a new life overseas legally can be almost impossible for many American citizens.
For many transgender Americans, the more realistic response has been moving from states with restrictive policies to places offering stronger legal protections, such as New York, California, and Nevada.
“She found out it’s not as easy as people think to seek asylum in other countries,” one user wrote
