LGBT News 17 y/o Transgender Female Commits Suicide to Help Transgender Civil Rights Movement

Re: 17 y/o Transgender Female Commits Suicide to Help Transgender Civil Rights Moveme

We have a long way to go and a lot of fighting to do for more acceptance and inclusion. There's still a lot of people out there who only think in a box and refuse to understand that gender is between your ears. People wouldn't take away a cisgender heterosexual person's dignity, like a cisgender man's right to wear male clothes, and it shouldn't be any different with transgender people. Here was a beautiful human who identified as female; but her parents didn't accept her and they isolated her; which led to her depression and suicide; she was deprived of the hormones that would have made her body more like a woman's and she would have felt better if she had to the chance and help to transition; but no, her parents were horrible to her and it led to her death. Her parents should be charged with her death.

 

Re: 17 y/o Transgender Female Commits Suicide to Help Transgender Civil Rights Moveme

^ QFT

i actually only saw this news on tumblr so far, but I hope the truck driver is at least better than her mom

 

Re: 17 y/o Transgender Female Commits Suicide to Help Transgender Civil Rights Moveme

This happened pretty close to home for me. I almost went into conversion therapy when I was in high school, but thankfully, I was talked out of it by my one friend that knew of my sexuality at the time (this was before I even thought about my gender). Some people in Ohio are pretty ignorant, and are not willing to pull their heads out of the sand when it comes to things like these. I've had my battles with it, and I sadly don't see it going away any time soon.

May she rest in peace, and may her death teach others a lesson.

 

Re: 17 y/o Transgender Female Commits Suicide to Help Transgender Civil Rights Moveme

From what I have seen around, there are already dozen of people sending a lot of...strongly worded posts, to put it lightly, to her.

 

Re: 17 y/o Transgender Female Commits Suicide to Help Transgender Civil Rights Moveme

I can't believe THIS is how transgender civil rights movements get noticed, and her parents.. I HATE THESE KIND OF PEOPLE! They're the type of Christians I completely hate, one of my old friends doesn't know because he was that way. Her parents, and this may be the first and last time I swear here, but the parents were complete assholes. They are the type that should BURN. If I was in the mothers position I wouldn't have even had the child. It fills me with grief that this is what it has come to. To some this may seem overboard, but to me this is just shy of perfect.

 

Re: 17 y/o Transgender Female Commits Suicide to Help Transgender Civil Rights Moveme

I feel very badly for the truck driver as well. I can't imagine the guilt he feels.

I don't know what to say right now. This whole thing, the lengths poor Leelah went to...

I don't want anyone else to feel like suicide is the only way out.
I don't want Leelah's mother to silence her daughter's voice, and ignore her wishes.
I don't want Leelah buried in a suit, with Joshua written on her gravestone.
I don't want LGBT youth put through conversion therapy.
I don't want these people that damage us to get off guilt free. I don't want Leelah's parents to mourn without guilt.

I just want trans youth to be encouraged. I want transgirls to know that they're beautiful. I want cis people to realise how much dysphoria can hurt, to know that we're not being selfish or difficult, that we aren't making a fucking choice. I want proper education on gender in schools. I want a ban on conversion therapy, and compensation for the LGBT victims of its negative effects. I want a 12 foot dildo to beat transphobes with.

But mostly, I just want every trans person, of every age, to know that they're not alone, and that things aren't hopeless. Suicide isn't the answer.

 

Re: 17 y/o Transgender Female Commits Suicide to Help Transgender Civil Rights Moveme

I agree completely. Her parents should be charged with her death. However, I would also add her therapists to the list. After all, they had a medical responsibility to help her, and they were the trained medical professionals. How is their failure to help her any different than a doctor that KNOWINGLY administers the wrong medication to a patient via IV in the hospital that ends up killing them? There is no difference. It is no secret that all queer people (for obvious reasons), and trans* people in particular are at a high risk for depression and suicide. Both the therapists and the parents did EVERYTHING they SHOULD NOT have done, and THEY are responsible for her death.

They need to be held responsible, and made an example out of so that other doctors and parents know what happens when they kill one of our own.

You are absolutely correct. I am shocked I had never seen it before, and this line of thinking will change how I advocate moving forward. The goal should no longer be just stopping these religious therapists. The goal should be stopping them, and creating laws that ensure that trans* people get the help that they need.

It should be easy for a trans* person to go to the doctor, and have that doctor legally required to send them to a qualified trans* mental health specialist. Then they should be able to get all the medical assistance that they need, even over the objections of the parents. A case worker should be given to minors that ensures that they are not being abused by their parents, as this young woman clearly was, and those case workers need to be empowered to take action against the parents.

We actively need to dis-empower parents of trans* children so that they cannot stand in the way of them getting all the help and assistance that they need. This should be how we push forward.

 

Re: 17 y/o Transgender Female Commits Suicide to Help Transgender Civil Rights Moveme

it made me so sad to read the part when she is saying her life will never get better. those words cut like a knife because I truly believe she was wrong. but it's impossible to see a future in those moments.

this is the worst thing. leelah wanted her suicide to mean something, her mother wants to pretend it was an accident. pure selfishness.

I really agree the parents should be held responsible for this.

 

Re: 17 y/o Transgender Female Commits Suicide to Help Transgender Civil Rights Moveme

I just saw this, and it made me cry.

I don't cry.

Too beautiful, too soon. I'm ready to fuck someone's shit up over this.

We need to mobilize, people. Large-scale demonstrations. I'm tired of hearing about all these tragedies. Let's put a stop to it, and make sure Leelah is remembered.

 

Re: 17 y/o Transgender Female Commits Suicide to Help Transgender Civil Rights Moveme

Clockworkfox, your post was very inspiring. Beautiful words in these times of sadness.

 

Re: 17 y/o Transgender Female Commits Suicide to Help Transgender Civil Rights Moveme

This disgusts me that the world/her parents are like this...
RIP Leelah.

 

Re: 17 y/o Transgender Female Commits Suicide to Help Transgender Civil Rights Moveme

I just can't find the words to describe my emotions. I read Leelah's note yesterday morning and had to hold back tears for the rest of the day. Overall I feel sad, crushed that such things can happen. I wish I could've helped her. I wish I knew her. :tears:

 

Re: 17 y/o Transgender Female Commits Suicide to Help Transgender Civil Rights Moveme

I went around the internet and check up on the later reports about her. It seems like major media are picking up on her notes and start to report using the correct pronouns. Most of them are also sympathetic to her wishes and writes about the kind of horrible things that transgender people have to go through, and talking about what has to change. Seems like a good sign.

Then there is the [insert all your expletives here] comment sections. I should have knew better. But I looked. And I know, statistically, it is just a vocal minority, a small bunch of ignorant people, a band of trolls, or a group of transphobic hollers. But damn, my heart sunk with what I saw. And I just want to scream, "what is wrong with you?"

 

Re: 17 y/o Transgender Female Commits Suicide to Help Transgender Civil Rights Moveme

Leelah has really had a huge affect on me. She's become a role model for me. Her resilience and brilliance has really inspired me. She did this for us. She did this for the better of the LGBT community. She wanted all the news outlets to cover it, and she is getting what she died for. Leelah is our martyr, and I will always look up to her for that. RIP heaven's little angel (&&&)

 

Re: 17 y/o Transgender Female Commits Suicide to Help Transgender Civil Rights Moveme

This is hard to take in. So tragic.

 

Re: 17 y/o Transgender Female Commits Suicide to Help Transgender Civil Rights Moveme

I heard Leelah was buried in a suit and her birth name was used on her gravestone. It reminds me of Brandon Teena a little, how his preferred name wasn't used on his grave either. Trans youth NEEDS to be protected. This is going to keep happening if nothing is done. Every trans person deserves to feel loved and accepted. Rest in peace, Leelah. <3

 

Re: 17 y/o Transgender Female Commits Suicide to Help Transgender Civil Rights Moveme

I support "Leelah's law" completely, getting rid of conversion therapy, but I want to say something.

Suicide doesn't help us. People already think it has to be transition or die, not transition so it stops hurting. Now they think that more than ever. What happened to Leelah was tragic. She is not a martyr, she is someone we all did not reach in time. She's a person we failed. The part in her letter about doing it for us. As any of us that have been that close to the edge knows, that was really something she was saying to make it easier to make her decision. Her way of giving herself permission. It did not help us. We don't need your blood.

I am so glad EC exists, but I really think we need more safe places away from the internet for people like Leelah to go to when there is no hope. They have to be accessible and friendly whether you're gay, straight, ace, or bi, trans, cis, or genderqueer, physically male, female, intersex, or neutrois.

Where Leelah could have been Leelah.

I think every one of us who has managed to leave our closets can make everywhere around us that kind of place. I really feel like that is the best way to help. Just be us and not afraid. Show Leelah there really is hope.

 

Re: 17 y/o Transgender Female Commits Suicide to Help Transgender Civil Rights Moveme

I'm going to forge ahead and live on as a proud trans person in her honor.

Rest in peace sister.

 

Re: 17 y/o Transgender Female Commits Suicide to Help Transgender Civil Rights Moveme

Sad....

 

Re: 17 y/o Transgender Female Commits Suicide to Help Transgender Civil Rights Moveme

A note to people saying that death wasn't the answer and that it was irrational -

She was suicidal. She wasn't at all thinking rationally, no one does when they are. Death probably was the only answer for her.

I know, we all wish that this was not the way it ended, and that she could have lived a long and happy life as a beautiful, strong and confident woman.

As I've said, Rest in Peace Leelah. We will all work together for there to be equality.