An Urban Outfitters customer has opened up in an essay for Mic about their transphobic experience of being turned away from the women's dressing room.

Here's what happened: Nicholas Gorham identifies as gender-fluid and "pretty much exclusively wears women's clothing, makeup, etc." When Nicholas and a cisgender female friend took a shopping trip to Urban Outfitters, the dressing room attendant stopped Nicholas from bringing their women's clothes into the women's dressing room to try on, and instead led them to the men's dressing room. After tweeting about the experience, Urban Outfitters contacted Nicholas directly and eventually sent a note that reads, well, dismissive.

"Although some retailers in the US are currently beginning to offer gender neutral bathrooms and dressing rooms, there are no binding regulations at this time in the state of California to which stores must adhere when making this decision as regards their own retail space," Urban Outfitters wrote in the message to Nicholas, which was included in the Mic piece. "Given this, we've shared your feedback with the store location in question, as well as the upper management overseeing that store, providing the information that was included in your direct messages. I'm sorry if you feel this does not sufficiently address your concerns."

Nicholas goes on to make an excellent point that society doesn't need a law to accept a person's gender, and in fact, there are too many laws that do just the opposite. A prime example? North Carolina's anti-LGBTQ bathroom laws, which mandate that people in the state use the bathroom that corresponds with their sex assigned at birth.

But there's hope: Nicholas says that New York City is leading the way with its progressive policy of allowing anyone to use the single occupancy bathrooms and dressing rooms that align with their gender identity, but big companies like Urban Outfitters need to catch up.

"I've had plenty of time to build up an armor against these kind of experiences so I can handle it better than I was once able to," Nicholas writes. "My real concern is for the teenager shopping with their best friend who is told they have to change on the other side of the store, based on some CEO's idea of their gender. What happens to the kid who sees that their identity is only worth acknowledging when a law is passed?"

We couldn't agree more. Thankfully, members of the trans community and their allies are speaking out for what's right, like this girl who made a viral video to explain what it was like to be bullied for being trans, or this young man who is taking a stand against his school for not allowing him to use the bathroom that matches his gender identity. And if you want to talk about the allies doing their part, most recently, these 40 student supported this teen after others staged a walkout because she used the girls' locker room.

Ending transphobia is not a responsibility of the trans community. In fact, it's up to allies to stand up against hate and violence when they see it happening. We hope that this never happens to Nicholas again, and that Urban Outfitters has a plan for how to prevent a situation like this in the future.

In a statement provided to Teen Vogue, Urban Outfitters addressed Nicholas's experience, saying:

We take all customer feedback seriously and were very surprised and concerned that our official protocols were not followed in one of our stores. Our fitting rooms are gender neutral and open to our customers who are trying on our products. We apologize and deeply regret this shopper did not have a positive experience and are looking into why our policies were not followed. Furthermore, we do not endorse any laws that discriminate against the LGBTQ community, and we have supported charities that are actively fighting the anti-LGBTQ HB-2 law in North Carolina. Again, we will immediately determine how and why our policy was not followed consistently and we regret any uncomfortable experience our valued shopper may have had.

This post was updated at 10:17 a.m. on Sept. 21 to include Urban Outfitters' response statement.

Related: One Trans Woman Explains What It's Like When Teenage Girls Harass Her