Idaho Pushed Anti-Trans Laws for Years. Then a Teen Died.

The life and death of May Pollard, 16, provides a window into the tragic effect that legislation and political rhetoric have had on trans people in America. A plaintiff in a suit against the state of Idaho, which has enacted some of the most draconian anti-trans laws in the country, May took her own life earlier this year:

After May Pollard died on a late-January morning, a detective asked her parents a question: Had anyone wanted to hurt her?

“A lot of America,” her mother answered.

Less than an hour earlier, Elyse Thorpe had found her daughter’s body inside their home, called 911 and sobbed as she tried to revive her. May, an avid poet and gamer, had been struggling and increasingly withdrawn.

Now, at 16, she was gone. And the detective, from the Boise Police Department, wanted to know what Elyse meant.

May’s father answered instead.

“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.”