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“There is a huge amount of animosity, every single day, thrown at trans kids,” Joseph Pollard replied, voice rising. “The whole f—–g country. The whole f—–g administration, every single f—–g day.”<\/p>\n
His raw fury came from the years of pain he and Elyse watched May endure since she came out as a transgender girl. She avoided eating or drinking at school for fear that she would need to go to the bathroom \u2014 and she panicked when she had to use the one for boys. She talked of hurting herself if she couldn’t start taking estrogen. She hated how state laws highlighted the only way she was different when she longed to fit in.<\/p>\n
It was more than what any kid should have to go through.<\/p>\n\n<\/button><\/div>\n“A lot of America” had wanted to hurt May Pollard, who died by suicide in January, her mother told police. (Natalie Behring for NBC News)<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
“You worry about that hatred being internalized, and that’s what happened to my kid,” Elyse told NBC News. “It got inside.”<\/p>\n
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Suicide is complex. It stems from a combination of causes, such as mental health conditions, and cannot be attributed to any one factor. But May’s life and death provide a glimpse into the tremendous and tragic effect that anti-trans laws and political rhetoric have had on trans people across America \u2014 especially kids. As May navigated the already overwhelming emotions most teenagers feel, dozens of conservative states and the Trump administration enacted measures defining sex as something that’s unchangeable and determined at birth, limiting\u00a0transition-related care for minors\u00a0as well as\u00a0some adults, and barring trans girls and women\u00a0from playing on female sports teams.<\/p>\n
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In Idaho alone, within the last few years of May’s life, state legislators proposed more than four dozen bills aimed at LGBTQ rights, and Gov. Brad Little signed 15 into law, according to the\u00a0American Civil Liberties Union. Many targeted youth, banning trans minors from\u00a0getting treatments like puberty blockers and hormone therapy\u00a0and\u00a0prohibiting classroom instruction\u00a0on sexual orientation or gender identity in public K-12 schools.<\/p>\n
State lawmakers who supported the bills have said their intent is to protect children. Healthcare for trans kids\u00a0hasn’t been studied enough, they said, and during school, students shouldn’t be exposed to\u00a0information about sexual orientation and gender\u00a0in ways their parents find inappropriate.<\/p>\n
“We need to stop sterilizing and mutilating children under the age of 18,” state Rep. Bruce Skaug, a Republican who sponsored the state’s transition care ban for minors,\u00a0said when the measure passed the House in 2022.<\/p>\n
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May had been aware of what was happening. She wrote poetry that she shared with friends about not fitting in and self-harm. One of her favorite songs, by the noise pop band Stomach Book, was about trans identity and oppression. She wanted to be a teenage girl, not an activist, playing video games with her friends and exchanging silly messages about cats and music.<\/p>\n
But she also felt that what she \u2014 and other trans kids \u2014 experienced was unfair.<\/p>\n
Last summer, she joined a lawsuit\u00a0under the pseudonym Jane Doe\u00a0to challenge a state law that banned trans students in K-12 schools from using bathrooms or locker rooms aligning with their gender identities. The law had forced her to use gender-neutral bathrooms at school, effectively outing her.<\/p>\n
“I don’t want people to know I am transgender without my consent \u2014 even students who might be friendly,” May said in a\u00a0case filing last fall. “I find being forced to use a separate restroom ostracizing, and I feel like I’m being treated like this other kind of thing.”<\/p>\n\n<\/button><\/div>\nDemonstrators gather for the Boise Trans March outside the Idaho State Capitol on Sept. 5, 2025. (Shannon Tyler \/ Idaho Statesmen \/ via Getty Images file)<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Throughout the last few years, advocates and doctors have camped outside of state representatives’ offices and stayed late at capitol buildings,\u00a0including in Idaho, to oppose anti-trans bills, sharing stories of trans friends and loved ones who attempted or died by suicide. Research has shown, they told lawmakers, that trans youth are at increased risk of self-harm, especially when they don’t have access to treatment like hormone therapy. Being transgender, they stressed, does not make a person inherently more prone to suicide, but the climate they face can pose a threat to mental health.<\/p>\n
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“The parents go and testify, and we say, ‘Children are going to die,'” Elyse said. “We tell the legislators that, and they dismiss it. I guess they think it’s hyperbole, or they think it’s hysteria, or they think it’s an acceptable outcome, probably some mix of those things. So I don’t understand why there is an unwillingness to connect these laws to these outcomes. It was right there from the start.”<\/p>\n
She had watched the toll they took on her daughter.<\/p>\n\n<\/button><\/div>\nMay was energetic and curious when she was little. She loved trips to the zoo. (Natalie Behring for NBC News)<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
As a young child<\/strong>, May had boundless energy and intense curiosity.<\/p>\nShe loved to plan summer days with her big brother, Axel, like trips to the zoo in Salt Lake City, where the sloths mesmerized her. She was so enamored with the gentle, misunderstood creatures, her mom said, that for years, “sloth” became her shorthand for “I’m really happy.”<\/p>\n
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When she was a toddler, her parents, both state employees, divorced and she split her time between their homes growing up.<\/p>\n
May excelled in her studies, taking high-school-level math in junior high. But starting in seventh grade, she became less engaged, easily upset and irritable, her teachers told Elyse. Not long after, she was diagnosed with autism. A doctor also prescribed her anti-depressants.<\/p>\n
She started to change in other ways, too: She grew her hair long and chose glasses from a women’s display at an Eyemart Express near their home. She asked her mom for bows to wear in her hair.<\/p>\n
“Come out, come out!” Elyse remembers thinking. “I’m ready to help you, but you have to tell me.”<\/p>\n\n<\/button><\/div>\nElyse waited for her daughter to come out while May grew her hair long and asked for bows to wear in it. (Courtesy Elyse Thorpe)<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
May came out to her dad during her eighth grade year. She texted him one day, out of the blue, explaining that she identified as a girl and hoped he would support her.<\/p>\n
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He texted back immediately.<\/p>\n
“I support you, 100%,” he remembers telling her. “I want you to be who you are, and it’s not a problem with me.”<\/p>\n\n<\/button><\/div>\nMay texted her father, Joseph Pollard, that she identified as a girl. “I support you, 100%,” he remembers telling her. (Hannah Yoon for NBC News)<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Over the course of several months, May slowly came out to her mom over a series of evening conversations in her bedroom.<\/p>\n
One night, she reclined against a pillow on her twin bed, Pokemon stuffies decorating the surrounding shelves, and told her mom that she had a decision to make.<\/p>\n
Elyse, sitting cross-legged on the floor, listened.<\/p>\n
May talked about her gender but also what sounded like contemplations of self-harm.<\/p>\n
“What she knew was that her body was unlivable,” Elyse said, “and she wasn’t sure what we could do about that.”<\/p>\n
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Her parents supported her switching schools, starting therapy, changing her name and developing what her mom described as her signature “goth cottagecore” style. One of her favorite looks included a long-sleeved pink button-up shirt with a lace collar and pockets paired with a skirt and black high-top Converse.<\/p>\n\n<\/button><\/div>\nElyse, seen here with Axel in Boise, was patient with her daughter as May began to come out; May acknowledged having suicidal thoughts to her father. (Natalie Behring and Hannah Yoon for NBC News)<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
As she got older, May spent more time in her room. Elyse enjoyed hearing her play video games behind her closed door, laughing and “good-naturedly swearing.”<\/p>\n
She made a tradition of attending PAX West, an annual gaming conference in Seattle, with her dad. May would shed her quiet and reserved manner, teaming up with strangers for tournaments. Last year, she went in cosplay as a character from one of her favorite games, posing for selfies when, at home, she wouldn’t allow her family to take photos of her.<\/p>\n
“She would always come home from that conference with so much confidence,” Joseph said.<\/p>\n\n<\/button><\/div>\nMay dressed as Noelle Holiday from “Deltarune” while attending the PAX West gaming conference with her dad in Seattle last September. (Courtesy Joseph Pollard)<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
May tried to settle into herself but found living in Idaho made it harder. In ninth grade, May confided in her dad that she was struggling with suicidal thoughts and made a plan to harm herself. She said she needed to medically transition, but she knew she couldn’t under state law until she turned 18. She asked her dad if he could use her Christmas money to buy hormones online.<\/p>\n
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Her parents recognized her increasing need for treatment. Elyse took May to her pediatrician, who wrote her a referral to receive care in Oregon. After spending several months on a waitlist, May and Elyse flew to Portland in the fall of May’s sophomore year, when she was 15, so she could start estrogen.<\/p>\n
She had to visit the doctor every six months. Once Trump took office and began a federal crackdown on gender-affirming treatment for young people, Elyse drove more than 13 hours round trip for the visits because she worried about creating a federal record of flying for transition care.<\/p>\n
The treatment brightened May. Her mom said it seemed like, for the first time in a long time, May wanted to live. But anytime there was even a small delay in filling her prescription, she would become more anxious and withdrawn.<\/p>\n
Elyse looked to find her additional outlets, and early last year, they joined a monthly support group for trans kids and parents through the Boise Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. After hearing during the meetings that May was struggling, Emi Erwin, another trans girl, reached out, and they quickly became best friends.<\/p>\n
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Their first hangout lasted almost all day, Emi said, starting with hours of gabbing at a coffee shop and ending at her house to watch “Castle in the Sky,” a classic Studio Ghibli film.<\/p>\n
From then on, they messaged nearly every day. They liked taking trips to the arcade, where Emi, 18, said she would drag May to play Japanese rhythm games \u2014 only for May to beat her every time.<\/p>\n\n<\/button><\/div>\nMay often beat Emi at Japanese rhythm games at Realms Arcade \u2014 even though Emi was the one who introduced May to them. (Courtesy Emi Erwin)<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
They bonded over a shared desire to be authentic.<\/p>\n
“Neither of us,” Emi said, “had to explain ourselves to each other.”<\/p>\n
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When the bathroom law<\/strong>\u00a0took effect in July 2023, it faced an immediate challenge. Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ legal advocacy organization, sued on behalf of a handful of students, claiming the measure was unconstitutional and asking a judge to block it.<\/p>\nThe federal district court declined to do so, but the students appealed, and a 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel blocked the law that fall while judges considered the case.<\/p>\n
Liliana Rauer, one of the plaintiffs, experienced overwhelming relief.<\/p>\n
“It just took away a lot of the concerns that I shouldn’t have to worry about when I’m at school \u2014 like how much I’m drinking, if I need to miss class so I can be able to go to the gender-neutral bathroom, which would be like a 15-minute trip,” said Liliana, who’s now 19 and a rising sophomore at Yale University.<\/p>\n
But the reprieve didn’t last. A second panel of 9th Circuit judges reversed the decision in spring 2025, siding with the state’s argument that it was justified in treating trans students differently in the interest of protecting student privacy in bathrooms and locker rooms.<\/p>\n
The judges determined that locker rooms, where showers may not have curtains or stalls, posed the biggest privacy concern. The state had an interest, they wrote, in protecting students from being exposed to the naked bodies of other students of the opposite sex or from having to expose their own bodies.<\/p>\n
Liliana returned to feeling demeaned and rationing her water intake.<\/p>\n
May knew those feelings well.<\/p>\n
Last July, before her junior year, she joined the case after learning about it through her support group. She saw an opportunity to help while remaining anonymous.<\/p>\n
At the time, besides the boys room, May was allowed to use two bathrooms at Boise High School: one in the nurse’s office and another across campus in a separate building.<\/p>\n
May found the options stigmatizing.<\/p>\n
She was tired of feeling starved and parched by the time her afternoon classes rolled around. If she had the slightest stomach upset, she would miss school altogether. Elyse said she warned May’s teachers about what was happening during parent-teacher conferences, but the instructors didn’t know what to do. (The Boise School District declined to discuss May’s case with NBC News, citing student privacy laws, but said in a statement that it prioritizes “creating safe, welcoming learning environments where every student has the opportunity to learn, grow, and succeed.”)<\/p>\n
May\u00a0told the court\u00a0that one of the gender-neutral restrooms at the school became known as the “trans bathroom.”<\/p>\n
She felt like she was under a microscope.<\/p>\n
“While I am transgender, I don’t view it as the defining feature of who I am as a person,” May wrote in an\u00a0affidavit\u00a0for the case. “I just want to fit in. It is upsetting to think that I may have to go through the rest of high school without access to something as basic as the ability to use the same restroom as everyone else.”<\/p>\n
As May’s troubles deepened<\/strong>\u00a0last fall and winter, Elyse prepared for the day her daughter would turn 18.<\/p>\nMay wanted gender-affirming surgery, but the closest surgeons her doctors referred her to were in Portland or Denver. During her recovery, she and her mom would need to live in one of the cities for three months.<\/p>\n
To save for the expense, Elyse\u00a0<\/strong>picked up a second job working evenings as a grocery store cashier.<\/p>\nMay dreamed of moving to Oregon and leaving Idaho for good. She’d run away once before but only made it a few miles from home before her dad found her.<\/p>\n
She turned to poetry, emptying pain through her keyboard. Across several poems, she wrote of fatigue, feeling out of place and death.<\/p>\n
Tired, mired still<\/em><\/p>\nI soak into the carpet<\/em><\/p>\nLittle, brittle chill<\/em><\/p>\nRemind me that I don’t fit<\/em><\/p>\nShe shared some of her work online in a chatroom. Emi tried to connect deeper, checking on May every day. Elyse said she went back and forth on the possibility of inpatient care.<\/p>\n
May’s messages grew more concerning.<\/p>\n
“everyone always leaves me before summer arrives, usually before spring even,” May wrote to Emi in early January.<\/p>\n
“I’m gonna stay by your side as long as you want me to may,” Emi responded. “i promise.”<\/p>\n\n<\/button><\/div>\nEmi Erwin at Realms Arcade, where she and May bonded. (Natalie Behring for NBC News)<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
A week later, May shared another poem in the chatroom.<\/p>\n
Asbestos, radiation<\/em><\/p>\nThere was no violation<\/em><\/p>\nTypical trauma missing<\/em><\/p>\nPained lives still got me wishing<\/em><\/p>\nMaybe its problematic<\/em><\/p>\nThink I’ve more ghosts in my attic<\/em><\/p>\nGuess this is actually bliss<\/em><\/p>\n‘Cause theres few cuts on my wrists<\/em><\/p>\nHollowing, rotting within<\/em><\/p>\nUntil my spirits cave in<\/em><\/p>\nMy heartbeat slows to a stop<\/em><\/p>\nAnd in the static I drop!<\/em><\/p>\nMay and Emi\u00a0<\/strong>last spoke the evening of Jan. 26.<\/p>\n“how are you,” Emi messaged.<\/p>\n
“ok,” May replied.<\/p>\n
“are you sure??” Emi asked.<\/p>\n
“yeah,” May said. “srry kinda distracted.”<\/p>\n
May asked about Emi, who said she was good but sleepy.<\/p>\n
“ill leave you to it tho,” Emi told her.<\/p>\n
That night, Elyse arrived home late after working both of her jobs and briefly saw May when she came out of her room to take a shower. She said May smiled and told her she had a good day.<\/p>\n
They both went to bed.<\/p>\n
The next morning, on Jan. 27, Elyse woke up early and made May breakfast, fried eggs and veggie bacon, like she always did. She took it upstairs to May’s room, only to find it empty.<\/p>\n
She screamed, saw that May had left a note on her desk and hoped that she had just run away again. She called 911 to report May missing, while her partner dialed May’s dad.<\/p>\n
Joseph called and called May, begging her to respond.<\/p>\n
“I love you so much,” he remembers texting her. “Please, please just let us know you’re safe.”<\/p>\n
Elyse tore through the house, looking for May, before she found her, lifeless, in a downstairs bedroom. She called 911 again and dispatch instructed her to begin CPR.<\/p>\n
But it was too late.<\/p>\n
Joseph, who lives a few blocks away, heard the police sirens just as Elyse’s partner called him again and told him he needed to come to the house.<\/p>\n\n<\/button><\/div>\nElyse’s eulogy for May, in which she remembered how curious her daughter was; a memorial candle for May. (Natalie Behring for NBC News)<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
In the weeks after<\/strong>\u00a0May’s death, her parents faced overwhelming tasks. Handling cremation services. Planning a funeral. Figuring out how to continue life without their youngest child.<\/p>\nAnd Elyse had another matter to resolve: her daughter’s pending lawsuit.<\/p>\n
She filed a declaration in federal court in February, explaining what had happened and referring to May, who’d been anonymous in the suit, as Jane.<\/p>\n
“The pain, heartbreak, and agony of losing Jane has been devastating beyond words for me and my family,” Elyse wrote. “While I may never have certainty about all the things that ultimately led to Jane’s death, I know that one stressor in her life was her struggle to fit in socially as a transgender girl.”<\/p>\n
The bathroom law, she wrote, was part of that struggle.<\/p>\n
May had been one of only two remaining plaintiffs in the lawsuit, because students can no longer participate once they graduate. The other anonymous plaintiff in the suit graduated in the spring.<\/p>\n
As a result, May’s lawyers moved to dismiss the case in May.<\/p>\n
Idaho Attorney General Ra\u00fal Labrador declared victory in\u00a0a press release.<\/p>\n
“From the district court to the Ninth Circuit, we defended Idaho’s right to protect students’ privacy in bathrooms and locker rooms,” Labrador said. “Idaho families can be confident that this law is fully in effect and will remain so.”<\/p>\n
The press release didn’t acknowledge May’s death.<\/p>\n
Labrador’s office did not respond to requests for comment. When the\u00a0Idaho Capital Sun\u00a0asked Labrador about May’s death, referring to her as Jane Doe, he said: “This is a personal tragedy and our hearts go out to the family. We don’t comment on the private circumstances of individuals involved in litigation.”<\/p>\n
May’s friends and family have felt her absence in a million little moments.<\/p>\n
Her empty, untouched room. Her spot at the support group, which now lights a blue candle with her name etched onto it before every meeting. The rear seat in Elyse’s car, where May would sit whenever they drove to her brother’s college in Oregon.<\/p>\n
Daily traditions have ended.<\/p>\n
Every morning, May rode to school with her dad, who kept a tin of mints in his car. As soon as she got in, he’d take a mint and May would take one. The tin has sat untouched in Joseph’s car with two mints left since January \u2014 one for him and one for May.<\/p>\n\n<\/button><\/div>\nJoseph used to share mints with May every morning. The mints remain untouched in his car with only two left. (Hannah Yoon for NBC News)<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Whenever Emi and May became bored and needed to fill the silence, they’d meow Christmas songs to each other, no matter the season. Over the last few months, Emi has found herself meowing “Jingle Bells” when she’s alone.<\/p>\n
Emi said her emotions since her friend’s death change every day.<\/p>\n
“Sadness, confusion, despair, anger \u2014 anger is very prevalent, both at the Legislature and kind of the culture here in Idaho, but also at myself,” she said. “A lot of regret.”<\/p>\n
An aching guilt. She wishes she had said or done more, telling May how much she cared.<\/p>\n
May planned to potentially go to community college for psychology, and her dad said she could have helped so many with her empathy.<\/p>\n
“She had a lot to give to this world,” Joseph said. “Whether she was trans or not, this world \u2014 not just my world \u2014 this world would have been a better place with her in it.”<\/p>\n
In her grief, Elyse has continued her advocacy, pushing back against the laws that weighed on her daughter and will continue to weigh on others.<\/p>\n
On March 31, which is Transgender Day of Visibility, the governor\u00a0signed a law\u00a0making it a crime for trans people to use restrooms in line with their gender identities in government-owned buildings and private businesses across Idaho.<\/p>\n
The next day, advocates held a sit-in inside the governor’s office to protest.<\/p>\n
“I wanted to support the protesters and remind everyone, including the governor,” Elyse said, “that the stakes are real.”<\/p>\n
She stood outside of his office, holding a small stuffed sloth and a photo of May.<\/p>\n\n<\/button><\/div>\nElyse said it’s hard to come home to an empty, quiet house, where she no longer hears May. (Natalie Behring for NBC News)<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or chat live at<\/em>\u00a0988lifeline.org<\/em>. You can also visit<\/em>\u00a0SpeakingOfSuicide.com\/resources<\/em>\u00a0for additional support.<\/em><\/p>\nIf you are an LGBTQ young person in crisis, feeling suicidal or in need of a safe and judgment-free place to talk, call the Trevor Project now at 1-866-488-7386.<\/em><\/p>\nThis article was originally published on\u00a0NBCNews.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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