A family opened a town's first bookstore. A bathroom bill is driving them away.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-family-opened-a-town-s-first-bookstore-a-bathroom-bill-is-driving-them-away/ar-AA1KfjVa?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=71d0701f135f433ceb67dd56a7408079&ei=94

Story by Casey Parks (9 Aug 2025)

VERMILLION, S.D. — Their time in this small Midwestern town was nearly over, but for now, Mike Phelan still had a business to run, so he and his daughter leashed their dog and headed up the street.

Mike twisted the key and looked down Main Street. Nearly all of downtown's quaint brick storefronts had Pride flags in their windows. He said he'd once dreaded moving to a red state, but Vermillion had surprised him. He wanted to stay here for the rest of his life. But in the morning, his wife and son would head east with a trailer, and soon, Mike and his daughter, whom The Washington Post is not naming to protect her, would follow with a truck.

Mike had tried to assure his daughter she wasn't the reason the family was leaving South Dakota, but the 10-year-old was savvy. She knew the state had passed a measure preventing transgender young people like her from using girls' bathrooms.

A group of customers had told Mike they were planning a "Phelan Pharewell" at a brewery on Main Street, and when Mike walked over, he expected he'd find maybe a small group. But as soon as Mike opened the brewery door, he could see more than 100 people were there.

A man in his 70s pointed to the Phelans' daughter, who was playing Old Maid with two other girls.

"What did that little girl do to hurt anybody?" he asked his wife. "Why are they going after such a small group of people?"

For context, the "small town" of Vermillion might only be 11,000 people, but it is a suburb of Sioux Falls, SD, the largest city in the state. Just across the border from Minnesota, it is a liberal area, and Pride is strong there.

Something that I noticed before leaving the state was that, generally speaking, the people were not the problem. The government has been quietly passing laws without a bunch of news coverage that erode transgender rights. It started with Kristi Noem's Executive Orders as Governor to suck up to Donald Trump. She even presented him with a four-foot replica of Mount Rushmore with Trump's face on it.

The citizens of the state were outraged. But her endearment to Trump did not go unnoticed, and now she is the Director of Homeland Security. As a politician in South Dakota, she has zero experience that would qualify her for the job that oversees the Border Patrol, the TSA, Customs and Immigration, and FEMA. Her only qualification is her loyalty to Trump. And the rest of the politicians in the state are happy to oblige to the detriment of their citizens.

And that is why I could no longer live there.