The 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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I am sorry this is so late getting out. Now that I can walk again I am helping Ron renovate the house and create my new office by making the meals and doing the dishes and laundry. But I am exhausted at the end of the day. I got to bed between 6 and 7 pm and get up between 4 and 5 am. I am not complaining, just telling the facts of my life. On Monday the 6th I got a spine shot that let me walk again. It is slowly wearing off and the pain and neuropathy in my right leg is again increasing. This morning I made breakfast of fried potatoes, two slices of bacon each, two sausage patties each, and three eggs fried over medium where the whites are fully cooked and the yolk is still yellow and runny. Ron wanted two whole muffins and I had two slices of toast.
Then I went out with Ron to the nearby Publix to get our 4 cases of Publix caffeine free diet cola which is 24 two litter bottles and while I waited for the store to bring them out to me Ron got a few snacks I wanted, such as peanuts and almonds, along with a few other things. Then when we got home I started the laundry of towels and sat down for a bit. Then got up to make Ron lunch but he saw how tired I was and told me he could get it himself so I started doing dishes.
Our next goal is to get the meat slicer out and make breakfast steaks and sliced ham for sandwiches out of the two medium hams we bought. It is far cheaper that way than buying individual ham steaks and sliced ham from the deli. Then Ron says he will make supper but I think if I can stand I will. But I am very tired. So now at 2:20 pm I am trying to finish the morning cartoons / memes / news posts.
But the real reason for writing this on this post is tomorrow. I have my spine surgery scheduled for 07:30 in the morning. Yes I am worried, but I have to have it. This is the one where they put me almost mostly under (the person who called me told me I wouldn’t be able to remember it happened). Heard that before. But I did remember. So nothing by mouth but my morning pills which they went over with Ron and I.
I admit I am struggling with the fact that I will be basicly nude and unable to protect myself during this. I have been drugged for sex in my childhood. So as I told people here I have to have a colonoscopy, and this is the same issue. The thing I have to help me is that this surgeon I have known and been getting epidurals from him that required my butt to be exposed. Therefore, I trust him.
I never told him but I know he knows of my childhood abuse because Doctor Brenda must have recorded it in my chart. Anyway the point is if I can get the cartoons / memes / and news post out tomorrow I will. I just don’t know how I will feel after the M.I.L.D. surgery to cut and trim the spinal cord in my lower spine. Oh Ron and I just trimmed up two hams into sandwich meat and ham steaks for breakfast. I will post that soon. Hugs
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Hey Tumblr guess what? For the next two weeks, posters are back in my online shop!! You get to choose between 4 rad designs. Get them while they’re hot!
Ron nad I have library cards. They let you borrow far more than books. They also have audio books, movies, TV shows, and games for every platform. When I want a book to listen to but it is too expensive, as audio books tend to be, we borrow it from the library app. The cool thing is if our branch doesn’t have it the main system will somewhere and we can still borrow it. Hugs
Yesterday, I stumbled on a forum dedicated to hate me, where people basically spend their lives spewing transphobic bs, obsessing over my body, making up stuff about me, sharing awful parodies of my work, etc. It really got to me, as I’ve been living with the knowledge that these people are constantly there, stalking each of my movements, for several years now.
I will never understand this kind of hate. I cried a good deal of tears. It was important. I need to feel in order to find the will and energy to create. I remembered who I do all this work for : us. The ones I call my family. My trans siblings. That’s why my new book starts with “we”. That’s why I’m announcing it in the urgency, as a memorandum for these troubled times and a reminder that we are stronger together, and that we need to be there for each other.
NEW: The FBI has explored using AI to assess the validity of signatures on tens of thousands of mail-in ballots seized from Fulton County, Georgia, another push in the Trump administration’s continued reinvestigation of the 2020 vote.
The rule directed the USPS to only deliver mail ballots if states handed over a list of preapproved voters.A federal court in Massachusetts blocked the rule implementation last month, and another court in D.C. followed suit shortly after.Full story:
The reelection campaign of Sen. Lindsey Graham, who died Saturday, has more than $2.3 million in leftover funds, according to a financial statement the campaign committee filed today with federal regulators.
Ken Paxton recently bought 3 Utah luxury condos worth $1.6 million. He then put them in a blind trust that shares an address with the Dallas home he appears to be sharing with a woman who is not his wife.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has pushed back against a new, million-dollar funding scheme from U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to support “free speech and religious liberty” in Europe.
Kegseth is hyper fixated on the the male physique and the idea of a white male hyper agressive toxic masculinity that he thinks the Russian military has. But while our inclusive military is considered one of the best Russia’s hyper all white military is getting its ass handed to it by the inclusive diverse Ukrainian military. I posted earlier that Kegseth has again blocked the promotion of well qualified female and black officers to two star rank in his goal of an all white male military. This guy won’t be in charge of the military in two more years if the people are allowed to to have a free election and his successor hopefully won’t be such a misogynist bigot. But the damage will be done and the careers of these officers damaged. Kegseth couldn’t take serving a full career of at least 20 years, but these people who he is denying promotion to have well more than 20 years in the military. How come testosterone for trans kids / people is somehow in Kegseth’s view bad and trans people taking hormones are unfit for military service, yet having straight white men all on testosterone some how makes the military better? Hugs
Service members 30 and over will test annually and can choose to receive testosterone replacement therapy if they are recommended for treatment.
“We owe our warriors the absolute best medical care in the world, and this program delivers on that obligation,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said. Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photo
The Pentagon will begin annually testing service members 30 and over for testosterone deficiencies, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Tuesday.
Hegseth said in a video posted to social media that the new screening would become part of the Defense Department’s periodic health assessment for military personnel. The health exam has been mandatory since 2016 and is used to measure medical condition, behavioral health, mental health and readiness to deploy.
Service members who are recommended for treatment will have the choice to receive testosterone replacement therapy, Hegseth said. Personnel under 30 can volunteer for an examination.
Hegseth’s post referred to “High-T,” a social media fad pushed by influencers that encourages men to seek higher levels of testosterone to maintain their strength and masculinity. Discussions around masculinity have seeped into culture wars and national politics. In May, James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Texas, defended his masculinity after personal attacks from conservatives about his physical appearance.
“This initiative — it’s not about artificial enhancement; it’s about restoring and optimizing your natural capabilities, protecting your longevity, and ensuring you have the biological foundation required to sustain the fight,” Hegseth said in the video. “We owe our warriors the absolute best medical care in the world, and this program delivers on that obligation.”
Testosterone levels in males decline about 1% a year after the age of 30 or 40, according to the Mayo Clinic. It is considered a typical sign of aging.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not approve testosterone replacement therapy for males without specific forms of hypogonadism, a medical condition associated with a malfunction of the organs that produce testosterone. Testosterone replacement therapy consists of injections, pellets, patches or gels that release hormones into the body.
Some medical groups, such as the Endocrine Society and the American Urological Association “recommend against routine screening” for hypogonadism in the general male population, according to Helen Bernie, a urologist and director of male sexual and reproductive medicine at Indiana University.
Bernie said testing could still be valuable in some military populations with symptoms or certain risk factors, but warned that a single low testosterone result should not lead directly to a diagnosis or treatment. Instead, testosterone levels should be measured twice in the early morning and considered alongside symptoms and possible underlying causes.
“Screening should open the door to a thoughtful medical evaluation, not automatically to a prescription,” Bernie told NOTUS.
Sleep deprivation, intense physical training, weight changes, illness and certain medications can temporarily lower testosterone, Bernie said. Doctors should evaluate those factors before determining that a service member has a testosterone deficiency.
Bernie said testosterone therapy is generally safe for appropriately selected and monitored patients, but it can “impair their sperm production or impair their fertility,” especially in young men.
She said service members should be counseled about fertility and other risks before beginning therapy and monitored throughout treatment.
“If the Pentagon moves forward with a screening program, I do think it’s important that there’s clear evidence-based guidelines in place so that every service member is evaluated consistently and safely.”
“The goal should be appropriate diagnosis, appropriate treatment, not simply increasing the number of men receiving testosterone,” she said.
The Defense Department declined to comment further on Hegseth’s video. It did not answer questions regarding the FDA’s guidance on testosterone replacement therapy.
The FDAdid not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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Billionaire TERF influencer J.K. Rowling has announced that she will cover the legal costs of anti-trans groups named in a report by Amnesty International (UK), which called them “anti-rights.”
The report was retracted shortly after publication and replaced with a statement from the organization saying the report was uploaded “without going through the established internal review processes” and that its “language does not reflect the position of Amnesty International UK, which is why it was promptly removed.”
But the withdrawal and public acknowledgement was not enough to sate the organizations that have fought tooth and nail to exclude and/or antagonize the transgender community in the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom is notoriously more perilous for free speech than the United States. For our neighbors across the pond, the burden of proof lies with the defendant to prove the statement is true; here in the United States, the burden of proof lies with the aggrieved to prove that a statement is categorically false, and published knowingly or at least recklessly regardless. The US also benefits from “anti-SLAPP” laws to prevent such frivolous lawsuits waged by wealthy individuals or powerful corporations against those who criticize them.
So Rowling capitalized on the spectacle to, in essence, help dozens of groups in what appears to be an attempt to sue Amnesty into oblivion.
CAPTION: Screenshot from Rowling’s Twitter, where she offers “women’s organizations” backing to sue Amnesty International (UK) through her own charitable fund. She quote tweets a group of people who self-identify as “trans widows”—referring to cisgender people whose spouses or ex-spouses came out as transgender.
The saga began earlier this month, when Amnesty International (UK) released a report titled “A growing threat: the anti-rights movement in the UK.” It released a similar report last year, but this year, it added a new category for what appears to be the anti-rights movement’s most rapidly growing sector: “Gender critical” groups, or groups that are antithetical to transgender rights and inclusion.
Rowling rushed to tweet about the situation.
CAPTION: Rowling tweets a group’s response to Amnesty International (UK)’s report on “anti-rights” groups.
She lauded “LGB” groups—another anti-trans buzzword, which, as the name suggests, describes groups that wish to erase transgender people from the queer liberation movement—like the Gay Men’s Network, an organization that has pushed for anti-trans policies. That group posted a public letter indicating it might sue Amnesty International for defamation. The Network demanded a retraction of the report and then claimed that Amnesty is guilty of “trying to control gay and lesbian free speech.”
In the day or so that followed, Rowling retweeted around a dozen similar letters. The posted letters include groups like Genspect, a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group that threatened Amnesty International with legal action, as well as groups like LGB Alliance and Sex Matters.
Amnesty International (UK) did not formally reply to a request for comment for this piece.
Gender critical activists, often financed by Rowling, rely on legal “guerilla warfare” said one U.K.-based trans rights organizer, who could only speak to Erin in the Morning if granted anonymity. The tactic is familiar: Wear down non-profits and individuals who dare speak out against anti-trans and anti-rights groups. They don’t have to win a lawsuit; they can just file again, and again, and again, draining valuable time and resources.
“They have sued organizations into the ground,” the advocate said.
Some context for just a handful of these groups so up in arms about being labeled as hateful: Helen Joyce, the director of advocacy for Sex Matters, gave a speech at a Genspect conference (both are groups on the anti-rights list) about how “beauty” is “inimical to trans bullshit.
She also boasted about manufacturing a moral and medical panic about how, although only a “small” segment of trans kids are prescribed puberty blockers, it has been a strategic “rhetorical device” to erode the rights of transgender people more broadly.
Depending on who you ask, TERFs are considered either a self-branded liberal faction of gender critical ideology, or a different term for what is essentially the same movement. TERF stands for “trans exclusionary radical feminist,” a term to describe self-proclaimed “feminists” who oppose giving transgender women and cisgender women equal rights.
Many of these TERF or “gender critical” groups have close ties to far-right Christian groups. DonorsTrust, the conservative donor behemoth and primary financier of initiatives like Project 2025, also forked over hundreds of thousands of dollars to groups like the Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine and Thoughtful Therapists, both of whom made the “anti-rights” list because, as Amnesty International (UK) among many others have put it, they promote “conversion practices.”
One major point of contention was the inclusion of Rowling’s own organization, Beira’s Place. It does not primarily seem to function as any sort of advocacy organization. Rather, it’s a women’s shelter for those fleeing domestic violence, but it also has an explicit anti-trans policy, banning transgender women from accessing its services.
However, as the report explained, none of these groups exist in a vacuum. “These entities must be understood as an ecosystem sharing values, goals, strategy and tactics and, for some of them, formal collaboration,” it reads.
Amnesty isn’t the first or last institution or expert to call out gender critical ideology for being anti-rights. UN Women has published materials saying as much.
Meanwhile, University of Sheffield sociologist Dr. Sally Hines has called this framework “deeply conservative.” In the Journal for Gender Studies, she writes that “despite its origins within a branch of radical feminism, [gender-critical ideology] has a profoundly misogynist agenda that stands opposed to the rights of women.” It is a “key force within a current conservative pushback against the rights of women and minoritized sexual groups.”
Gender critical activists continue to use the language of oppression to characterize their plight. Many say “TERF” is a slur. Others believe criticizing a group because of its arguably regressive politics is grounds for a lawsuit.
Despite the fact that the report was pulled down, Erin in the Morning was able to retrieve a copy reposted by an anti-trans news outlet. You can read a full version of that archived version below.
Report A Growing Threat The Anti Rights Movement In The Uk July 2026
Trump’s decision to have his motorcade drive across the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool during a high-profile inspection last month may have contributed to damage now plaguing the national landmark.www.newsweek.com/donald-trump…
Oil prices continued to climb on Tuesday, hitting their highest levels in a month, as an escalating pattern of strikes and counter strikes between the U.S. and Iran rattled markets.
Trump formally notified lawmakers this weekend that the nation is once again at war with Iran, giving his administration another 60-day clock to use the military in the region without congressional approval.
I am sorry, I wanted to add so much more to this post. I have 65 websites I use to make this post. However I am very very tired. It is 4 pm here and I will struggle to make supper for Ron and me, and I doubt I will be able to even eat. As much as I love the blog and the people who come here who I adore, I love my husband the most. Two days ago when I fell because I grabbed a support that gave way, my 71 year old husband charged into the room and helped me back up. Both of my hands were very bruised and damaged. We help each other. So this is the post. After I schedule this, I will go make our supper. Sadly I simply have run out of time today to get to the wonderful comments. But the grand thing is everyone who comes here has a voice on what I post. But Ron has said that other than sharpening the knives he needs he really wants to leave me alone to reply to your comments. See Ron understands both how important this blog is for me and he agrees to the large cost each year, and he supports my being able to interact with each of you. However on my part I also know that making my husband of 36 years happy means a lot of nighttime hugs and some one who reaches out to comfort me when I am crying or sobbing at night.
I hope others can have the relationship Ron and I have. When he was sick or fearing he needed a new heart I was there for him in the room holding his hand. When I scream out at night remembering my abuse scaring the cat he is there to wake me, hold me, and force the hurt away from me by his very presence. Love and best wishes to everyone and hugs to those that want them. Scottie
John Russell (He/Him)July 20, 2026, 1:00 pm EDT
Ron nad I have library cards. They let you borrow far more than books. They also have audio books, movies, TV shows, and games for every platform. When I want a book to listen to but it is too expensive, as audio books tend to be, we borrow it from the library app. The cool thing is if our branch doesn’t have it the main system will somewhere and we can still borrow it. Hugs
