As I watched Jennicet Gutiérrez open her mouth to interrupt President Obama’s Pride Month reception address Wednesday night – because, she said, as an undocumented trans woman she couldn’t celebrate while LGBT detainees are being abused in US detention centers – I thought, That could have been me.

I could see myself as a transgender US immigrant in a roomful of LGBT people, wanting to celebrate the president’s actions to advance the cause of gay marriage, trans healthcare and trans people serving in the military, but being unable to shut my mouth because of the deplorable conditions that undocumented LGBT immigrants, especially trans women, face.

Trans women in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention are routinely housed with men and are either at enormous risk of sexual assault, sometimes by ICE guards themselves, or are placed in solitary confinement for months for their own “safety” – all after already enduring violence in their own countries that led them to seek asylum. So when Gutiérrez shouted, “President Obama, I am a trans woman. I’m tired of the abuse. I’m tired of the violence,” she was advocating for an issue that cuts to the heart of what it means for a person to be treated with basic human dignity, regardless of immigration status.

President Obama’s response was bracing as it was heartless, especially being the child of one non-American himself. “Listen, you’re in my house,” he said. And later: “I am just fine with a few hecklers, but not when I’m up in the house. You know what I mean? You know, my attitude is if you’re eating the hors d’oeuvres – you know what I’m saying?”