‘The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was, they’re treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights. Gender needs to be taught about in schools, the earlier the better. My death needs to mean something.’
These were the final, tragic words of 17 year-old Leelah Alcorn, a transgender teenager from Ohio who was forced by her religious parents to take conversion therapy for trying to live her life as a female. At 2.15am, on Sunday 28th December 2014, she took her own life by walking into the oncoming path of a truck. She left behind a suicide note on Tumblr that she had scheduled to be published later that day, documenting her struggle with her parents and the realisation that they would ‘never come around’ and allow her to transition.
Leelah had been born Joshua Alcorn, and had felt that she was ‘a girl trapped in a boy’s body’ since the age of four. She had ‘cried with happiness’ when she learned of the term transgender, finally feeling that she wasn’t alone in how she felt. However, when she tried to come out to her parents and asked for permission to undergo transition surgery, they vehemently refused and began to isolate her, taking away her phone, her access to social media, and disallowing her to see friends. All these actions were documented both on Leelah’s Tumblr and Reddit account, but she was so dissociated with the world that she had to question herself as to whether she was being abused as her parents ‘never physically hurt’ her but would ‘always talk[ed] to me in a very derogatory tone’, telling her that she would never ‘be a real girl’, humiliatingly asking her if she would ‘fuck boys’ and perhaps most heinous of all, that ‘God’s going to send you straight to hell’.
Have you had to pause to take a deep breath yet?
The worst thing about this is that Leelah is not – was not – alone. In 2014, 48% of transgender people under 26 in the UK attempted suicide, close to the 41% of transgeders in America. As far as the LGBT movement is concerned, the ‘T’ is the most misunderstood of them all. As a community, we have made huge strides in the way that people think. We finally have equal marriage rights, we can come out in our workplace without fear of dismissal or prejudice. Of course, we still hear stories of homophobia in the media, and we still have a long way to go, but progress is being made, slowly but surely.
I’m not sure that the same applies to the transgender movement.
In October 2014, in Idaho, a 32 year-old transgender woman named Jennifer Gable died suddenly. Despite having been transitioned for several years, and being known to all of her friends as Jennifer, her father took over the funeral service, instructing the director to cut her hair and dress her in a suit, and in all accompanying notes, referred to Jennifer as her birth name and as ‘he’. Here in the UK, in March 2013, school teacher Lucy Meadows was found dead after committing suicide. Lucy had transitioned from male to female the previous year and was returning to school as ‘Miss Meadows’. She had been hounded by the British press, largely thanks to Richard Littlejohn’s shaming article in the Daily Mail claiming that she was ‘not only in the wrong body, but in the wrong job’, and left in her suicide note that she had ‘simply had enough of living’.
This is not OK. Not even nearly.
Transgender men and women have a difficult enough time admitting to themselves that something is wrong, that they feel like they were born into the wrong bodies, that their minds are not in tune with what’s between their legs. It it too much to ask for some support on this matter? Are we really that short-sighted as a nation, as individuals, as people of compassion and understanding to brush this under the carpet as if it’s not really happening? Are we going to ignore the fact that a 17 year-old has committed suicide, someone who should have had her whole life ahead of her, because she thought that things wouldn’t get better?
Leelah Alcorn doesn’t want her death to be in vain. She wants things to change. She wants people to comprehend the enormity of this situation. Certainly not how her mother is dealing with things, who refuses to honour her daughter’s identity, still referring to Leelah as her ‘son’ and using male pronouns.
Just ask yourself this one question. If you know someone at work who is male, and they approach you one day in work and inform you that they are changing their name, and request that you refer to them as ‘she’, how would you respond? Would you simply say, ‘Oh, right, good for you’, and continue with your life as normal? Or, would you question why? Would you harangue them with questions, lambaste them with derogatory comments, or worse, dismiss them and ignore their request?
If you answered the latter, it’s time to change.
Just to be clear, I’m not saying you shouldn’t ever ask questions. But do it in your own time. Research. Learn. Look at past stories. Examine your own prejudices. Ask yourself if you’re offended, and if you are, why. Transgender people aren’t asking to be fixed. They’re asking you to listen, to understand, and to treat them as they ask to be treated.
And remember, it’s never too late to change.
Some of the coverage you find on Cultured Vultures contains affiliate links, which provide us with small commissions based on purchases made from visiting our site.
