Leelah Alcorn wrote: “Gender needs to be taught about in schools, the earlier the better.”
Leelah Alcorn, a 17-year old transgender girl from Kings Mill, Ohio, died on December 28. A suicide note appeared on her Tumblr later that same day.
She wrote that she felt "like a girl trapped in a boy's body" and had done so "ever since [she] was 4."
Leelah said: "When I was 14, I learned what transgender meant and cried of happiness. After 10 years of confusion I finally understood who I was."
But she felt she was isolated from society by her Christian family and said she was not given consent to transition on her 16th birthday which "absolutely broke [her] heart."
At the end of her letter she included this plea:
My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year. I want someone to look at that number and say "that's fucked up" and fix it. Fix society. Please.
She begged them to never tell their child that being transgender is "a phase", "that God doesn't make mistakes," or that they can never truly be the gender they feel they are.
If you are reading this, parents, please don't tell this to your kids. Even if you are Christian or are against transgender people don't ever say that to someone, especially your kid. That won't do anything but make them hate them self. That's exactly what it did to me.
