Veronica Clifford Carlos, 28, an actor and visual artist from San Francisco, never imagined she would end up in a refugee camp in the Netherlands. But since early summer, she has been shuttled between Dutch detention centers and asylum camps. On June 10, she landed at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, walked up to border officials, and asked for asylum.

Clifford Carlos, who has lived openly as a transgender woman since 2018, said the harassment and threats she endured in San Francisco had become unbearable.

“Every day when I went outside, I’d deal with people saying, ‘I’ll kill you. I’m going to do these awful things to you and nobody will ever find out,’” she recalled from a refugee camp in the southern city of Heerlen.

Since US President Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January, she said the threats have escalated. “It feels like the height of people suddenly thinking, ‘I can say hateful things, and the people in charge won’t stop me.’”

On Trump’s first day back in office in January, he signed an executive order calling for the federal government to officially define sex as either being male or female. A few days later, he issued another order seeking to end gender-affirming medical treatments for children and teenagers under the age of 19, and, in February, signed a directive banning transgender women from competing in female categories of sports.

For Clifford Carlos, the impact was crushing. “It feels like the US doesn’t see me as human. I am not seen as a woman in the eyes of the government, and because of my transition, I am technically not a man either.”

For decades, people fleeing persecution have sought safety in the United States. Now, in a striking reversal, dozens of transgender American citizens are seeking asylum in Europe, in particular, in the Netherlands.

Seven days after applying for asylum there, however, Clifford Carlos’ application was denied. Last month, she appealed the decision in a Dutch court. Her case is believed to be the first of its kind involving an American citizen in the Netherlands. And it is being watched closely by other American asylum seekers in the country.

Among them is Elliot Hefty, 37, a transgender man born in Maryland who lived in Kentucky up until earlier this year. He fled to the Netherlands in April and is currently staying at the Ter Apel refugee camp in the north of the country.

Back in the US, Hefty worked in a front-facing role with Medicaid, interviewing clients and their lawyers to help them access medical care. But after Trump’s election in January, he was reassigned.

“All the brown and visibly queer folks on staff were removed from patient-facing positions, placed on a different floor, and were only allowed to process paperwork and take phone calls,” Hefty said, adding that they were told the company was restructuring.

On the streets, he faced increasing hostility. “When I went grocery shopping, people spat in my face. Sometimes, at the mall or local shops, they refused to take my money. I was told repeatedly that my ‘tranny money’ was no good here.”

A week after Trump’s inauguration, Hefty was attacked on the street in Kentucky in broad daylight. “I was walking down the street for lunch, and I was pushed to the ground so hard that I went sliding across the pavement. This man was yelling slurs at me and screaming, and I was left alone bleeding in the middle of the street.” Hefty said he decided then he had to leave the US. “I was like ‘I have to get out of here. If I don’t get out, I’m not gonna make it.’”

The Dutch advocacy group LGBT Asylum Support is currently assisting around 20 American trans individuals with pending asylum claims. Its founder, Sandro Kortekaas, said the FBI has reported a rise in hate crimes in the US against the LGBTQ+ community and more Americans now appear to be seeking refuge in the Netherlands.

Jane Michelle Arc, a software engineer from San Diego also arrived at Schiphol airport with her service dog at the end of April. As a transgender woman, she said the verbal harassment and physical attacks had become intolerable but they started long before Trump’s time in office.

“The first time I was handcuffed for using a women’s bathroom was during the Obama administration,” she said. Arc, who lived in San Francisco and came out as trans in 2012 said barely a week went by when she wasn’t attacked in some way.

“One time, I was hospitalized for an assault and the doctor asked me what was going on. And I didn’t mention to him that I was getting punched or pushed or shoved like every single week walking between our offices in downtown San Francisco in broad daylight,” Arc said. “This had happened so many times that I just didn’t even think it was relevant to mention it to him.” Arc decided to flee to the Netherlands because it was one of the few countries that has granted asylum to transgender women.

The Netherlands earned its reputation as a safe haven for LGBTQ+ people more than four decades ago. In 1981, it became the first country in the world to grant refugee status to someone based on sexual orientation. Later, in 2001, it was the first country to legalize same-sex marriage. Those milestones cemented its image as a pioneer of LGBTQ+ rights. But Marlou Schrover, a professor of economic and social history at Leiden University, who specializes in migration, said that the country’s liberal image doesn’t hold true in practice. Very few people have been granted refugee status on the basis of their sexuality or gender identity alone, she explained.

Schrover said it is not enough to feel unsafe or face regular harassment. A person has to have experienced physical violence.

“And then you need to be able to prove that when you went to the police to report the assault, they refused to support you,” she said.

Dutch authorities still regard the United States as fundamentally safe, Schrover said. If a transgender person reports facing hostility in one state, Dutch officials will say they could just move somewhere else — to a more liberal city like New York or San Francisco.

Trump’s successive orders curtailing rights for transgender people may also not be a sufficient reason, said Schrover. “Exclusion from the military or exclusion from sports may be unpleasant and horrible, but it’s not seen as persecution in the eyes of Dutch immigration officials.”

In March, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs updated its official travel advisory for LGBTQ+ citizens visiting the United States, warning that “other laws and customs” now apply there. The ministry noted that “a number of states have introduced local laws which may have negative consequences for LGBTIQ+ people, such as access to health care.”

Schrover said decisions are also political and granting someone refugee status is a severe form of criticism of a country. For Dutch officials, criticizing Iran or Nigeria or Uganda is one thing, criticizing the US is something else entirely, she said.

In a statement, the Dutch Ministry of Asylum and Migration said the developments in the United States concerning LGBTIQ+ persons are being monitored. “So far, these do not provide grounds to assume that LGBTIQ+ asylum seekers from the US have a well-founded fear of persecution or would face a risk of violation of Article 3 ECHR (prohibition of torture) upon return. Each asylum application is, however, always assessed on its individual merits.”

Veronica Clifford Carlos, from San Francisco, said the thought of being sent back to the US fills her with terror. “More dread than I have ever experienced in my entire life,” she said.

The court in the Netherlands is expected to decide on a ruling within a month.