The 25-year-old South Carolina transman got the virus in Tiktok and was accused of at a bar by staff, called Sullah and was taken into custody by police after using a woman’s toilet.
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Luca Strobel posted under the Tiktok handle @fulltimecowboy, His friend Caroline Frady also said he had gone to pick up 25-year-old Caroline Frady at the Sanddollar Social Club in Folly Beach on Friday night, May 16th.
After a long drive to the bar, Strobel said he stepped inside to use the man’s room. However, there were no food stalls. Only the urinal, he was inaccessible as a trance man.
Initially, the employee warns both Strobel and his friends about going into the “opposite” sex toilet, but after a brief exchange, Strobel says he believes he has permission to do so. He also said he and Frady were the only two in the toilet and Frady confirmed to Morning Erin.
It shows a man who he says is the owner of the bar plunges into the woman’s room, peers into the food stall and uses the toilet to see Strobel.
“They look on my stall without my clothes,” Strobel said in the video. “They can see me perfectly besides wearing my shirt, and they start screaming that there’s a ‘man’ here. ”
He said the owner and employee drove him and his friends out of the bar. Police were waiting at the door, Stovell said.
The officer cuffed him “I’m so tight I can’t even feel my fingers,” Stovell said. “I still have bruises on my knuckles,” while his arrest officers allegedly kept calling him a “little girl.”
“We weren’t booked, but we were cuffed. When we arrived at the station we were asking a lot of questions they refused to answer,” Strobel said. “They kept saying, ‘Take it in the courtroom, lift it up in the courtroom, lift it up in the courtroom.” ”
Sand Dollar Social Club could not be reached for comment. The Folly Beach Public Safety Department did not respond to requests for comment.
In a follow-up video, Strobel said he was released on a $500 bond and hit with a trespass notice that barred him from entering the Sand Dollar Social Club, and issued tickets for public addiction and disorderly conduct. Frady said she received the same thing.
In an interview with Erin in the morning, Strobel emphasized that he was not consuming a drink. He was there for the sole purpose of being a designated driver. He says the officers didn’t let out a breath at him.
There is no state law in South Carolina that prevents trans men (or men) from using women’s rooms in public accommodations such as bars. But there has been an avalanche of anti-trans bills nationwide, seeking such mandates, including South Carolina, which lawmakers enacted a version of this policy targeting schools. It was reintroduced in 2024 and 2025.
In other words, Strobel used the bathroom that many conservative lawmakers and anti-trans critics would want him to use. And he was arrested anyway.
This type of harassment is unfamiliar to trans and gender nonconforming people. In April, a Florida trans girl was arrested for using a woman’s toilet In the act of protest against the state’s anti-trans bathroom bill. She washed her hands in the sink before being escorted by the police. In February, Arizona cisgender lesbians made headlines after they documented her own experiences of police questioning their gender while using women’s toilets.
Morning Erin‘s 2025 Anti-Trans Legal Risk Map Designate it as a “high risk” state of travelling South Carolina. Last year, Republican Gov. Henry McMaster signed Affirming minor healthcare trans to the law.
Strobel says he believes he knew he was trans as his shirt revealed the scars of his best surgical. Despite this, he said he refused to “go to stealth” or to hide his trans identity.
“My safety is of course important to me, but at the end of the day, I want people to know that we exist,” Strobel said. Morning Erin. “I want people to know that it’s okay just because you live here.
Meanwhile, Strobel said the recent incident made him feel like he had no choice anymore. The risk of further transphobic violence is too high to stay. Strobel said he was. raise funds for relocation Where he can ultimately feel authentic after all these years, as well as be safe.
This article was originally published Morning Erin.
Source: Advocate.com – www.advocate.com
