John Russell (He/Him)July 20, 2026, 1:00 pm EDTThe parents of a transgender teen who died by suicide earlier this year are speaking out about the toll Idaho’s anti-trans laws and the Trump administration’s anti-trans crusade took on their daughter.
“You worry about that hatred being internalized, and that’s what happened to my kid,” Elyse Thorpe told NBC News in a recent profile. “It got inside.”
Thorpe and ex-husband Joseph Pollard describe their late daughter, May Pollard, as an energetic and curious child who loved sloths, video games, and writing poetry. She just wanted to live her life and experience the same things any teen does. But she was also keenly aware of the wave of anti-trans laws and sentiment that have swept Idaho and much of the U.S. in recent years.
According to NBC News, May, who had also been diagnosed with autism, came out as trans when she was in eighth grade. She began receiving gender-affirming medical care in ninth grade. But due to Idaho’s ban on such care for minors, passed in 2022 and upheld by the Supreme Court in 2024, her parents were forced to travel to Portland, Oregon, every six months to get May the care she needed. Following President Donald Trump’s return to office in January 2025, Thorpe began making the 13-hour round trip by car to avoid creating a flight record amid the administration’s relentless crackdown on gender-affirming care for young people.
While the treatment improved things for May, the obstacles placed between her and the care she needed by anti-trans legislators continued to weigh on her.
Then, in July 2023, Idaho’s law banning trans students from accessing single-sex bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity took effect. Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit challenging the law on behalf of Boise High School’s Sexuality and Gender Alliance, and in July 2025, May joined the lawsuit under the pseudonym Jane Doe. In court filings, May described feeling stigmatized by being forced to use her campus’s two single-occupancy restrooms, which came to be referred to as the “trans bathrooms.”
“It is scary having to look around before to see if anyone will see me going into the single-user restroom, as I worry about people gossiping and speculating about me being transgender,” she said. “I don’t want people to know I am transgender without my consent — even students who might be friendly. For me, it is not a part of myself I talk about or that I feel is the most important part of my identity.”
Her parents told NBC News that May would avoid eating and drinking during the school day, hoping to not have to use the school’s bathrooms. “I just want to fit in,” she wrote in her affidavit in the Lambda Legal case. “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.”
May’s parents say she became more troubled last fall and winter, according to NBC News. She attempted to run away to Oregon, and at least one of her poems seemed to reference self-harm. Then on the morning of January 27, Thorpe woke to find May missing from her bedroom. She later found her daughter’s body in a downstairs bedroom. May was just 16 years old.
When a detective asked her parents whether anyone might have wanted to harm May, Thorpe responded that “A lot of America” did.
“There is a huge amount of animosity, every single day, thrown at trans kids,” an angry and grieving Pollard told the detective. “The whole f**king country. The whole f**king administration, every single f**king day.”
As NBC News notes, over the last few years, Idaho Gov. Brad Little (R) has signed 15 anti-LGBTQ+ laws. In April, Little signed a pair of bills, one of which made it a criminal offense for trans people to use the bathroom associated with their gender, while the other banned Pride flags on government buildings.
As for Lambda Legal’s challenge to the state’s school bathroom ban, at the time of May’s death, she was one of just two plaintiffs left in the case, as all the others had graduated high school and no longer held standing. Earlier this spring, Lambda Legal moved to dismiss the case after the final plaintiff graduated.
But Thorpe has continued to protest Idaho’s anti-trans laws. According to NBC News, she stood outside Gov. Little’s office during a March 31 protest holding a photo of her daughter.
“I wanted to support the protesters and remind everyone, including the governor,” Thorpe told the outlet, “that the stakes are real.”
“The parents go and testify, and we say, ‘Children are going to die,’” she 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.”
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Tag: Another Damn Bathroom Bill
And So Now It Goes To Court
a-gain. And again. Possibly yet again, though it shouldn’t need to go past the state Supreme Court. But still. Statements within.
‘This bill spits on basic human decency’: Kansas Legislature passes bathroom ban without hearing
- Kansas Reflector
- Jan 28, 2026 Updated 11 hrs ago
House Majority Leader Chris Croft suspended rules to force an emergency vote immediately after the Jan. 28, 2026, House debate on a bathroom bill forcing people to use facilities aligned with their biological sex at birth. The move pushed the bill through immediately instead of waiting one day as is usually required. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
TOPEKA — The GOP-led Kansas House and Senate on Wednesday approved a “bathroom bill” targeting transgender people after House Democrats delayed passage by six hours, proposing multiple amendments to set the stage for a possible legal challenge.
House Majority Leader Chris Croft, an Overland Park Republican, called for emergency action to take the vote immediately after debating the bill instead of waiting a day as rules require. House Substitute for Senate Bill 244 passed on an 87-36 vote along party lines, with one Republican opposed.
The Senate concurred with the bill Wednesday evening, voting 30 to 9, also along party lines. The bill will go to Gov. Laura Kelly, who is expected to veto the legislation. It passed both chambers with the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto.
Democrats fought the bill’s passage in the House, basing their arguments on two primary concepts — that the bill was rushed through the legislative process, giving little time for public input, and that it is an inhumane attack on transgender people.
“This bill spits on basic human decency, and I’m embarrassed we had to spend the entire day trying to defeat this thing,” said Rep. Susan Ruiz, D-Shawnee.
Ruiz also said she believed the bill was targeted at a specific legislator, referring to Rep. Abi Boatman, a Wichita Democrat who is a transgender woman. Boatman was selected to fill a vacant seat in early January.
“I have sat here for five and a half hours and listened to this entire room debate my humanity and my ability to participate in the most basic functions of society,” Boatman said at the close of debate. “From the bottom of my heart, I hope none of you have to ever sit through something like that.”
The legislation would require people to use the bathroom in government buildings that matches their biological sex at birth, rather than their gender, and requires governments to enforce the rule. Both the governmental body and individuals could face steep fines for violating the law.
The bill also requires that the sex listed on a driver’s license and birth certificate match the person’s biological sex at birth.
House Minority Leader Brandon Woodard, D-Lenexa, said in an interview after the House adjourned that the amendments and testimony presented by Democrats throughout the day “gave a lot of fodder” to Kansas courts to make a decision when the case is revived.
During debate, Democrats repeatedly referenced Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach failed attempt in court to ban gender marker changes on driver’s licenses. Woodard said he didn’t think this bill would hold up in court, either.
“As long as Kris Kobach’s our attorney general, I think he’s going to continue to lose in court,” he said.
Rep. Alexis Simmons, D-Topeka, talks about her experience with sexual assault during a Jan. 28, 2026, House debate on a bill to regulate who can use a bathroom in a government building. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
Emotional testimony
It was a long debate full of emotion, sometimes anger, often frustration. Several times legislators were accused of impugning another legislator, and loud exclamations resonated from both sides of the chamber, including emphatic shouts of “oh, baloney.”
Rep. Alexis Simmons, D-Topeka, said she hadn’t planned to talk about a personal trauma but felt compelled to speak up when she heard others testify about how difficult it would be for women who have been raped to share a bathroom with a man.
She referred to testimony by Rep. Charlotte Esau, R-Olathe, who said the bill protected the “silent” women who are unwilling to speak up about being assaulted and who need women-only spaces to feel safe.
“I’m a victim of a sexual assault and never once did I think it was somebody else’s responsibility to manage my trauma,” Simmons said. “I feel enormous sympathy for victims of trauma, that goes without saying, but I do not appreciate my trauma being used to justify legislation that we know will cause harm to people.”
Simmons said she felt more threatened by men than she had ever felt by a transgender person.
“Here in this building, as an intern, as a committee assistant, as staff and as a legislator, I have been sexually harassed more than you would believe,” she said. “If we’re going to talk about women’s safety, we should address the real trauma, which is how women are treated, not putting the spotlight on one new member of our Legislature.”
Rep. John Carmichael, D-Wichita, rejected claims made by Rep. Susan Humphries, R-Wichita, and Rep. Bob Lewis, R-Garden City, who argued the bill would protect women.
The bill instead will force transgender men, who live as and look like men, to use a woman’s restroom, Carmichael said.
“He is going to sit down at the stall next to your granddaughter,” Carmichael said. “Is that what you really want? Not only that, there are other facilities which have locker rooms or the like. That hairy-faced man will be standing naked, showering next to your daughter. That’s what this bill requires.”
Other legislators spoke about concerns that the bill would embolden people to attack transgender individuals.
Rabbi Moti Rieber, with Kansas Interfaith Action, watched all six hours of debate, his face often grim.
“This bill is a combination of a culture war-obsessed supermajority and a broken legislative process, using every process trick in the book to get unnecessary and harmful legislation into law with no public input,” he said.
Rep. Dan Osman, D-Overland Park, opposes a bathroom bill during a six-hour House debate on Jan. 28, 2026. The bill forces people to use the bathroom that matches their sex at birth. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
Process problems
Throughout the day, Democrats pointed to process problems surrounding the bill. The Judiciary Committee revealed a hearing on House Bill 2426 with less than 24-hour notice. At a later hearing, the bathroom portion of the bill was added with no advance notice and no chance for public input.
Then, in a procedure referred to as “gut and go,” the committee dumped the contents of HB 2426 into Senate Bill 244, which allowed the Senate to simply concur without ever holding a hearing on the overwritten bill.
“Procedurally, it is the absolute worst bill I have ever heard in the Kansas Legislature,” said Rep. Dan Osman, D-Overland Park, who also serves on the Judiciary Committee. “It was done with one purpose and one purpose only — to ensure that the absolute least number of people were available as opponents to this bill and that they were unaware that there would even be a hearing.”
Additionally, there is no fiscal note — a formal notice provided by budget analysts and researchers about how much a bill will cost — for the bathroom provision. That means it is unclear how much local governments could have to pay to ensure they are complying with the law.
Rep. Kirk Haskins, D-Topeka, said he was upset about the rushed schedule and the lack of a fiscal note.
“It upsets me when we rush things through that deal with my constituents, and my constituents, they don’t get a say. That’s what happened here,” he said. “This is a trend. I don’t know what’s going on. Yesterday, we had committee meetings without information. We heard a bill, we didn’t have a proponent, just because we have the power to do it.”
Some legislators focused on details, such as how enforcement would be handled and what would happen if someone violated the bathroom restrictions. Humphries, the Wichita Republican who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said complaints would be made to the governing body if someone suspected a person was using a bathroom that didn’t match their sex at birth.
The bill outlines fines for individuals and also that governing bodies could be held accountable — to fines as high as $25,000 — if they don’t require people to use bathrooms as outlined.
In an interview after the House adjourned, Haskins said he would be comfortable seeing Boatman, as a transgender woman, in the men’s restroom at the Statehouse.
“I’m comfortable with anybody in the restroom,” he said. “I think the bill is based upon fearmongering on issues that are not critical to Kansas, and wherever she wants to go, Rep. Boatman, I’ve got her back.”
This story was originally published by the Kansas Reflector.
Scottie's Playtime 