They bonded over a shared desire to be authentic.
“Neither of us,” Emi said, “had to explain ourselves to each other.”
When the bathroom law took 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.
The 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.
Liliana Rauer, one of the plaintiffs, experienced overwhelming relief.
“It just took away a lot of the concerns that I shouldn’t have to worry about when I’m at school — 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.
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.
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.
Liliana returned to feeling demeaned and rationing her water intake.
May knew those feelings well.
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.
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.
May found the options stigmatizing.
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.”)
May told the court that one of the gender-neutral restrooms at the school became known as the “trans bathroom.”
She felt like she was under a microscope.
“While I am transgender, I don’t view it as the defining feature of who I am as a person,” May wrote in an affidavit for 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.”
As May’s troubles deepened last fall and winter, Elyse prepared for the day her daughter would turn 18.
May 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.
To save for the expense, Elyse picked up a second job working evenings as a grocery store cashier.
May 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.
She turned to poetry, emptying pain through her keyboard. Across several poems, she wrote of fatigue, feeling out of place and death.
Tired, mired still
I soak into the carpet
Little, brittle chill
Remind me that I don’t fit
She 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.
May’s messages grew more concerning.
“everyone always leaves me before summer arrives, usually before spring even,” May wrote to Emi in early January.
“I’m gonna stay by your side as long as you want me to may,” Emi responded. “i promise.”
A week later, May shared another poem in the chatroom.
Asbestos, radiation
There was no violation
Typical trauma missing
Pained lives still got me wishing
Maybe its problematic
Think I’ve more ghosts in my attic
Guess this is actually bliss
‘Cause theres few cuts on my wrists
Hollowing, rotting within
Until my spirits cave in
My heartbeat slows to a stop
And in the static I drop!
May and Emi last spoke the evening of Jan. 26.
“how are you,” Emi messaged.
“ok,” May replied.
“are you sure??” Emi asked.
“yeah,” May said. “srry kinda distracted.”
May asked about Emi, who said she was good but sleepy.
“ill leave you to it tho,” Emi told her.
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.
They both went to bed.
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.
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.
Joseph called and called May, begging her to respond.
“I love you so much,” he remembers texting her. “Please, please just let us know you’re safe.”
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.
But it was too late.
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.
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