[TheSeamster]

(MASSIVE TRIGGER WARNING: SUICIDE/TRANSPHOBIA/DYSPHORIA/ABUSE) If you are feeling suicidal at all or begin to feel that way please call the transgender hotline Trans Lifeline can be reached at 877-565-8860. For LGBT youth (ages 24 and younger) contemplating suicide, the Trevor Project Lifeline can be reached at 1-866-7386. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 can also be reached 24 hours a day by people of all ages and identities.

(Also feel free to message me if you find yourself struggling. I'm online daily and will do my best to help.)

Linked here is the last few posts by Leelah Alcorn on tumblr: satan's wifey

I'll be paraphrasing some of it here, but please, read this girl's last request. She wanted her death to mean something to us. To everyone. And I want to help fullfill that request.

As many people on the internet now know, on Sunday, December 28, 2014, a transgender teenager took her own life by stepping in front of a semi on a highway four miles from her home.

Her name was Leelah Alcorn.

While some news resources are saying it was a "tragic accident", Leelah's death was no accident. As a suicide note went up on her tumblr some time close to her death. In her note, Leelah details how she struggled for almost her whole life feeling like she was in the wrong body. She tells how at age four she began to feel that she was a girl, and not a boy as her parents and doctor assigned her at birth.

At age fourteen she said she found the word 'transgender', and was happy to know she was not alone. That there was a reason for how she felt. That there was nothing wrong with her.

But as many young trans teenagers find, parents are not always accepting and kind.

Leelah shares how her parents actively denied her identity, telling her it was 'wrong' and that 'God doesn't make mistakes' and that she would never be 'truly a girl'.

Leelah was put in conversion therapy, a practice often take up by religious parents to try and "convert" their child to what they think is "normal". I'm sure many of you have heard of this. Conversion therapy aims to make gay kids straight, trans kids cis, and whatever else these parents deem their child needs to be.

It is not 'therapy'.

It is abuse.

Leelah never got the treatment for the depression she struggled with, nor her gender identity and how it was perfectly normal.

She was even isolated for five months when she came out as gay at school, hoping it would ease her social transition with friends.

At sixteen, Leelah's parents denied her request for hormone replacement therapy to begin the feminizing process. This broke her heart.

At seventeen, Leelah saw no other choice than to take her own life.

But she wanted that to mean something. So I'm here to make sure it does.

Leelah Alcorn believed it was too late for her to transition, that she'd never be happy, that she'd never find love.

It is never too late. There are women who have transitioned in their late 30's or 40's. And they look like any other trans woman. Hormone replacement therapy and surgeries are being refined and honed all the time. Any doctor who says it's too late to transition either doesn't know or is actively lying.

This is a misconception in the trans community that needs to stop. It is never to late for you to transition.

You can find love. It can take work. It won't always be the first try, but finding love as a transgender person is not impossible. True love means they will love you unconditionally regardless of your gender expression or trans status. It doesn't always have to be romantic either. Your friends, those platonic bonds you build, the ones that stay with you even after coming out, they are the supports you can lean on.

Even if you don't have anyone close by who you can lean on. The trans community is here. We are all over social media. There are meet ups, group sessions, and support groups. There's a hotline you can always reach if you're in a crisis like Leelah's.

And I want each and every single one of you who reads this to know that I am here for you.

I started on this forum because I felt suicidal. I felt like no one would love me. I saw myself an annoying depressed freak who didn't deserve anyone's attention. But I saw other people struggling. And we helped each other stand up. We supported each other even if we both felt like we were falling down.

My three closest friends in real life have all struggled with suicide. My best friend, the one who is life family to me, had attempted suicide three times. Her father committed suicide when she was very young. She's struggled with depression for so long.

I want you to know that there is another way. You don't need to leave this world to be happy. I know it can seem hopeless. I know it's hard. I know it hurts. And hell, sometimes it doesn't get better. Sometimes it only gets worse. Sometimes it feels like your a boat lost out at sea with a storm that never let's up. You keep being tossed underwater and you can't breathe.

But you can get through it. You are strong. You are important. You exist. You are alive. And you have so much potential.

It doesn't matter how old you are. It doesn't matter what you've done in the past. You are here. And now. You can do anything. You can BE anything.

You are important. You are valid. You are ALIVE.

Her name was Leelah. She was seventeen. And she wanted change. She wants society fixed. So let's get out there and mother f*cking fix it for her. For us. For all the people like us.

No more dead trans girls who think they will never find love.

No more dead trans boys with think they're freaks.

No more nonbinary people dead because they're told they're fake.

We're gonna fix it. US. Because that's what Leelah wanted.

Rest in peace, Leelah Alcorn... may all be comforted...

[-jimi-]

There is so much passive abuse of trans people. But when I see there is this type of active, evil abuse I get mad.

I don't understand how anyone, in the name of a LOVING GOD, can abuse their children.

Robbing someone of their identity is extremely dangerous. It has been shown over and over, not just in this matter.

I think it is time I speak up more IRL.

TY for posting this. There have been so many victims. Suicides, murders, abuse, taunting, stalking.... I hope there is an afterlife and that they all are at peace. I hope they somehow can channel some love down to us so we act with love, instead of reacting with hatred to hatred.

[TheSeamster]

I wanted to add some more to what I posted originally.

I really wan us as a community to see people like Leelah as people. As a human. Not just another name, not a martyr, as a girl. A young girl who never graduated high school, who struggled with being alone, who was an aspiring artist.

Leelah was a child. One with so much potential. She was old enough to have been a friend of mine. Or a sister, or even a coworker. Leelah was someone anyone coild've known.

She wasn't perfect. She was a kid who was stuck with ****** parents that denied her. Stuck with parents that preffered a dead "son" to a healthy daughter.

On top of that, she wanted all of her worldly possesions to be sold or donated to help other trans people. And her parents probably won't honor even that request.

Rest In Power Leelah.

We will do what we can to change the world for you and every other dead trans child who never had a chance.

Years ago the movie director, Franco Zeferelli made a movie version of Shakespeare's "Romeo & Juliet" It starred Olivia Hussey & Leonard Whiting. Anyway, there is a scene from the movie I will never forget. Following the death of the two lovers, the lord who was over the families involved (my lack of familiarity with Shakespeare is showing) rides up toward the camera flanked by two (as I recall it) of his soldiers. The camera shot is from the ground. So he looks imposing. He brings his horse to a quick stop & yells: "All are punish-ed!"

[FlowerChild67]

Rest in peace, Leelah Alcorn... I understand I have been there many times myself. I hope the world would get it head out there a s s and accept everyone and stop the hatred. I have lost 2 transgendered friend to suicide.

[FlowerChild67]

Also age does make a whole he-ll of a lot when it comes to transitioning. On of my friends who died was older and started at an older age and could not pass if she tried and it was because of her age.

Originally Posted by SamanthaAnne

Also age does make a whole he-ll of a lot when it comes to transitioning. On of my friends who died was older and started at an older age and could not pass if she tried and it was because of her age.

Transgender people say it's never too late to transition. And they're correct, in theory. I once saw a picture, in a book I was reading, of an MtF trans person who transitioned in her 80's! But for some of us, it is too late, for a variety of reasons...

[TheSeamster]

When we say it's never to late, we want to stop the rumor that you need to transition at 17 or 16 or any of your early teen years in order to ever fully transition or be happy. That's where we lose so many transgender youth.

I was seventeen when I discovered I was trans. And for awhile I thought that it was too late for me and that I'd have to live the rest of my life as a cis woman and that I'd never be the person I wanted to be. I'd be stuck with wide hips, narrow shoulders, a high annoying voice, and everything else estrogen ever cursed me with. I was ready to give up. I was ready to do the same that Leelah did. But then I met and saw so many people who transitioned at 25, or 34, or 43, and it gave me hope.

[LiteraryLark]

This is what I put on my facebook/tumblr:

Sure, your death was tragic, but look what you could have done, could have become. You are no longer a movement but part of a death toll. You could have been one of the great leaders and voices of your community, now you're just a passive echo of a life you wish you could have lived. Trans teens cannot and should not follow in your footsteps. You could have done great things and have made something for generations to come, but you simply ended your life. I wish there were more voices heard in your community, and you could have been one of them.

[Grey Matter]

Her life was tragic. The fact that she got forced into corrective therapies was tragic. The fact that trans women are constantly ridiculed, abused, murdered, etc in this society is tragic. The fact that a young trans girl, who did advocate for trans rights, was ignored until she committed suicide. Have you read her archived tumblr? She constantly, constantly defended trans women, shared resources, comforted others. She was doing that job. Sadly, she didn't live in a safe space with safe people and she suffered.

The thing is, trans women are constantly ignored. Trans women have their voices silenced by trans men. So many young trans women have been killed or killed themselves due to abuses and intolerance. This isn't a singular instance of a trans woman killing themselves. This is something that is constant, and not because they can't take it, but because we offer literally no tools of assistance to trans women and the only time you hear about any of them is when one dies, usually by another's hand.

Trans kids wouldn't follow in her footsteps if they didn't have to constantly fear for their lives and well being. She didn't simply end her life. She endured years of abuse and manipulation and dysphoria and was mentally ill and the only way she saw out was to kill herself.

That's not a child's fault. That is societies massive failing.

[FlowerChild67]

well said Grey Matter

Parents can teach love and acceptance as easily as hate and intolerance.

Leelah's parents should be arrested for child abuse.

It's not just the straight community that has blood on its hands, but it's also some people of the LGB community. I'm gay, and it frustrates me when I meet other gay men and they talk about sexual-orientation rights, but they don't say s*** about gender-orientation rights.

For Leelah's death to mean something we must change the laws pertaining to youths (17 years old or younger). Any youth that expresses a desire to transition should have the legal right to do so (regardless of how the youth's parents feel about this). Only if we do this will Leelah's death mean something.

I love you Leelah Alcorn.

[TheSquids]

This is sad and good this girl she deserved better and religious people if god makes no mistakes then they made us this way. I will remember this person forever. Her death must mean something.