In a bar a girl comes on to a guy and takes his drink. She says she could give him a hell of a 21st birthday. He confronts some older relatives and is angry that they sent this girl. He is going home. His father goes after him and says the guys didn't mean anything.

Carisi has champagne. He says his colleagues will approach Rollins with a job offer: a teaching position. She is not a teacher but he thinks this will be good for her. He asks her to sleep on it.

Aiden's father arrives at his house with his suit and gets no answer. He tries to call and hears his cell. He breaks in and finds his son dead on the floor.

The father is Marc McDaniels who recently collared someone in a big postal scam case. SVU was called because there were bite marks on Aiden's genitals.

McDaniels won't leave the house. Benson and Rollins talk to him. McDaniels is near tears and is somewhat incoherent. He wants to know who did this and admits he broke the window when he saw Aiden's body. He realizes he needs to call Aiden's mother and inform her.

Benson tells Fin to be with the father and Muncy to check Aiden's phone, socials, etc. She walks into the room and finds out that the father put a towel over the son. The closet and drawers are mostly empty.

ME says Aiden died of head trauma. It looks like he was sodomized and attacked with a wine bottle. He doesn't know if the kid was sodomized pre- or post-death. His nails were trimmed and he was scrubbed with dish soap to get rid of the DNA.

They find out Aiden was going to meet with his friend Brian Donnelly in a neighbourhood that is known for being racist, homophobic, and otherwise hate-filled. The bartended claims Aiden wasn't here. The cops force him to give them security footage. They see Brian was there with a girl and no Aiden. They realize Brian's date was Aiden in drag.

Brian is brought in and won't admit Aiden is the girl. He says Aiden was his best friend since second grade. He didn't know anything about it until she showed up. He was lucky she passed. He was mad because this was a bad area for trans people. He feels guilty that he said he couldn't accept her for who she was. He went home to his wife and baby. The cops want to take dental impressions anyway. He says if he had to do it over he would have bought him a beer and said he loved him.

Brian is proven to be innocent. Ada went to the West Village after. Benson thinks they need to find out if Aiden's parents knew about Aiden's double life.

The cops go to see McDaniels. He says doesn't believe it and says Brian is lying. The mother says this was true. Ada wasn't ready to tell her father.  Benson interrupts. They need info. The mother says her name was Ada.  She says Ada kept to herself and wasn't an angry person. Benson says the crime scene doesn't match up. Someone tried to cover all their tracks. McDaniel accuses Benson of not doing her job well. Benson says if she thought he kjilled Aiden he'd be in cuffs.

Benson and Rollins argue about whether it was appropriate for Benson to misgender Ada to get McDaniels to trust her. They get a call about a similar attack.

Benson and Rollins go to see the victim. She is a trans woman who met a guy named Lucas in the bar and when she took him home he became violent and tried to kill her with a wine bottle. She grabbed mace and blinded him but he escaped. He knew she was trans.

Muncy finds a woman with a dog who goes on and on about a guy falling down the subway. Muncy realizes it's the perp and tells the woman to shut up. She arrests the man after beating him up but claims she didn't break his rib herself.

Benson hopes they get DNA this time. Benson tells Fin to use a black light to see if this guy was maced. The guy says it wasn't me.

The suspect is named Lucas and forensics is a match. He is claiming it was consensual. McDaniels arrives and starts telling them what to do. They try to explain that there was no evidence at the scene. He tells Benson to stop interrogating him. He says his son would have fought like a man. He insists they missed something and have to start their investigation all over or he's going to get them in trouble.

In court Rollins testifies about Cora's case. The defense objects to Rollins being asked whether Cora was targeted because she was trans but the judge allows it. Rollins goes on about how people don't get what it means to be transgender and it angers some people. She thinks Lucas was targeting trans people.

The defense attorney tries to argue that this was a consensual non-consensual role play and uses a quote from Rollins' lecture out of context to ake her point.

Cora testifies and says she was not involved in a CNC roleplay. She was trying to stay alive.

Defense tries to argue that Cora liked it rough and didn't say stop or no. (Ignoring that if it was CNC those words are useless.) She tries to say that since Cora was on the wrestling team before she transitioned she could fight the guy off. She also makes her talk about her pre-transition life where she defended herself. She's sure Cora could have defended herself and therefore enjoyed this.

Benson and Carisi try to comfort Cora. Cora thought she was an expert at seeing people like that. She hates that she was wrong about Lucas. McDaniels is hanging around. He doesn't know how she does these cases. He hates that Cora was attacked. Where were her parents? Benson says he's a good person who made a mistake. She says we both know what you did and she understands. But putting a towel over his child wasn't the only thing. He says he didn't want the cops to laugh at his son so he took off everything feminine. He says he chose shame. If he'd left it the way it was maybe Cora wouldn't be attacked. Benson says he can still support Ada by using her name. He says he wasn't really listening and is not a good person.

McDaniels gives Benson the clothes etc. She tells him if he has to testify he could go to prison for tampering with a crime scene. She advises him to get a good lawyer. He wants to make it right.

McDaniels testifies before the grand jury. He admits he messed with the crime scene but he knew what would happen and he knew his daughter identified as a woman but he didn't accept that at the time. He was ashamed of it now. He held onto her clothes because they were the only things he had left of her.

The grand jury indicted Lucas. He made a deal and also he has cases in Belgium.

Fin asks Muncy what's wrong with her that she didn't listen when he told her to wait. She says sometimes people piss her off. He advises her not to do that again and to stop putting fruit on a pizza.

McDaniels gives a eulogy calling Ada by her correct name and gender and admits it's his loss he didn't accept her.   Benson thinks he and his wife may be able to reconcile now. Benson calls Rollins Professor and Rollins rolls her eyes.