A South Dakota community has rallied to help a transgender couple buy the town’s only bookstore now that the state’s anti-trans bathroom ban has forced its original owner to move east to protect his 10-year-old daughter.

As The Washington Post reports, the people of Vermillion, South Dakota have so far donated over $27,000 via a GoFundMe campaign for Nova and Elias Donstad to make a down payment on Outside of a Dog, a beloved family-owned bookstore. The shop’s owner, Mike Phelan, opened the store shortly after moving to Vermillion with his family five years ago and discovering that the town did not have a bookstore. He named it after comedian Groucho Marx’s quip, “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend.”

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Now, though, the Phelans are moving to New England because of South Dakota’s recently passed law banning trans people from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity.

Mike and his wife Jen’s trans daughter has identified as a girl from an early age. In 2021, the couple successfully lobbied the Vermillion School Board to adopt a policy allowing their daughter to use the girls’ restroom — making it the only district in all of South Dakota with such a policy.

The following year, Republican state Rep. Fred Deutsch introduced a bill to ban transgender students from using the restroom that corresponds to their gender. Mike spoke out against the bill at the time, sharing his daughter’s story, and it ultimately failed to pass. But this year, a similar bill succeeded.

In recent years, however, the state has also passed laws banning trans girls from participating in school sports that align with their gender, and on gender-affirming care for minors. As the Post notes, the Phelans’ daughter is too young for medical intervention and is not interested in sports. The state’s bathroom ban, however, would force her to use the boys’ restroom at school or potentially go back to faking injuries so that she could use the school nurse’s bathroom. The Phelans, like many other families of trans kids, have opted to move to a state with explicit legal protections for their daughter.

As the Post notes, South Dakota’s anti-trans laws have ripple effects beyond trans people and their families. In the case of Vermillion, the town stood to lose not only beloved community members when the Phelans left, but its only bookstore as well.

That’s where the Donstads came in. Elias, a trans grad student, and Nova, a nonbinary nurse’s assistant, offered to buy Outside of a Dog from the Phelans. Unsure how they would manage the down payment, the Donstads started their GoFundMe campaign at the suggestion of another Vermillion local, and the town helped them raise the money they needed. With the sale finalized, Mike Phelan recently handed the bookshop over to its new owners.

Both on Mike’s last day at the store and at a farewell party that evening, Vermillion residents turned out in droves to express their sadness at losing the Phelans, their frustration with Republican attacks on their daughter’s rights, and their relief that the bookstore would live on.

One couple introduced themselves to the new owners. “We will support you,” they told Elias and Nova. “We want you here.”