The parents of a Boise High School transgender student are speaking out about her death by suicide.

In an in-depth NBC News report, they discuss the societal pressures facing teens like their daughter, May Pollard, 16, who died in January.

“You worry about that hatred being internalized, and that’s what happened to my kid,” Elyse Thorpe told NBC News. “It got inside.”

“She had a lot to give to this world,” Joseph Pollard told NBC News. “Whether she was trans or not, this world — not just my world — this world would have been a better place with her in it.”

While not publicly named, May Pollard played a role in Idaho’s debate over transgender policy.

Identified in court documents as Jane Doe, Pollard went to federal court to challenge Senate Bill 1100, a 2023 law requiring students to use bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender assigned at birth.

“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,” Pollard said in a court document. “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.”

Attorneys for the state and Boise High’s Sexuality and Gender Alliance agreed to close the lawsuits in May, and the law is now in effect.

“From the district court to the Ninth Circuit, we defended Idaho’s right to protect students’ privacy in bathrooms and locker rooms,” Attorney General Raúl Labrador said in a news release hailing the agreement. “Idaho families can be confident that this law is fully in effect and will remain so.”

Labrador’s news release made no mention of Pollard’s death by suicide. “This is a personal tragedy and our hearts go out to the family,” Labrador later said in a statement to Idaho Capital Sun.