Topher Malone was sprinting through her final days of high school: On Friday, she led a Gender-Sexuality Alliance club meeting, then stood before a rapt audience of National Honors Society juniors eager to hear how Malone got in to Harvard.....

By every standard, Malone is a model of a successful young woman: She’s a straight-A student and class president at Round Rock Independent School District’s Early College High School, she attends national youth leadership conferences and she’s raised money to support the school group she leads.

Malone is also trans. Malone says having access to gender-affirming treatments before she turned 18 in May allowed her to embrace her true self and channel her energy into her advocacy for LGBTQ youth.....

Malone told the lawmakers that she’d applied to colleges in Texas. But as soon as she received an offer from a college outside of Texas — Columbia University in New York, which came before her acceptance to Harvard — she had decided to leave the state.

“I don’t want to stay here for college anymore because of what this state government is doing to trans people like me, and I can’t stand it anymore,” Malone told the committee members.