Content note for suicide.
When you finish reading this paragraph, please take a moment of silence and contemplation to commemorate the death of Leelah Alcorn, a 17 year old trans girl who lost her life to suicide this week as a result of transantagonism. In order to value Leelah’s own words about her experience and decision, we ask those who feel able to read her final message (content note: this is Leelah’s suicide note). Sadly, Leelah’s tumblr has been taken offline in an act of further silencing and erasing of her identity and life. However, her message is still available in a cached version and has been preserved by others on their sites. In order to combat this silencing and honor her last wishes to be heard, we ask you to please read Leelah’s last words if you feel able, and then to take a moment of contemplation.
If you identify as trans, please know that the entire DDP editor circle is thinking of you during this difficult time and sending you care and support. If you identify as cis, please take this moment to think about ways in which you, personally, can make a difference in reducing the hostilities that our trans siblings experience so painfully and often.
One way you can immediately take action is to sign these petitions. One is requesting Leelah’s parents to honor her identity by engraving her tombstone with her chosen name. The second is requesting the United States government to legislate against a form of abuse known as “Transgender Conversion Therapy,” which causes enormous suffering and harm to trans individuals.
When you finish your moment of contemplation, remember that for things to change, it is crucial to listen when others speak out. Head over to the #RealLiveTransAdult hashtag on Twitter to read the stories of brave trans individuals who are sharing their experiences and lives as a trans adult. Please share the #RealLiveTransAdult hashtag and conversation with anyone you know, whether trans individuals struggling to see a future for themselves, or cisgendered individuals who need to educate themselves about trans people’s humanity, that their lives and right to self-determination are intrinsically worth supporting and caring about.
She found a way to get her truth out even though her parents tried to hide her story and her identity. There’s a screen cap of Leelah’s mother misgendering her and pretending it wasn’t a suicide on facebook. That’s why her suicide note–her own words about her own experiences and decisions–is so important.
I live in the area where Leelah lived and died, and her story has reduced me to tears several times since the real story came out. This morning I yelled at the TV when the local news misgendered Leelah – “She is a she, not a he, damn it!” Thank you for posting the links to the petitions.
My thanks to Logan for those.
Agreed with Kate M above – reading her note and keeping it online is a major way to address the misgendering you witnessed on the local news. Oof, I hear you on those feels. I hadn’t realized that they had taken down her tumblr until I tried to link to it for this post, and when I navigated to that page and saw “There’s nothing here,” something about that made my heart just plummet.
I hate that her Tumblr was taken down. Her words are so important to share. Her parents’ refusal to accept her – what she felt, who she was, her TRUTH – both saddens me and infuriates me. I’m so glad you were able to find cached images of her Tumblr and that note. We had to speak out, we have to make her voice heard through our own.
I’ve raged and cried over Leelah’s death so many times since the news broke. I feel so helpless to do anything meaningful but I signed petitions and have spoken about her on my facebook. I just wish I could do more.
Same – there’s so much pain in what happened here. Given her last wishes for people to start making this world a better place for trans individuals, I think your actions really honor that. Speaking out is where it starts, and I’m hoping we’ll find more and more ways to make this world what it should be.