Tuesday, December 27, 2016

'MY DEATH NEEDS TO MEAN SOMETHING'
17-YEAR-OLD TRANS GIRL SAID IN FINAL NOTE



ANTINOUS weeps for Leelah Alcorn (November 15, 1997 – December 28, 2014) the 17-year-old US transgender girl who committed suicide to make a statement about the societal standards of transgender people. 

A suicide note was published on her Tumblr page in which she declared that she wanted her suicide to cause an impact and create a dialogue about the discrimination and abuse of transgender people.

Meanwhile, Leelah Alcorn rallies are planned and a candlelight vigil is scheduled to be held at Leelah's high school near Cincinnati, Ohio, on January 3.

Laverne Cox and Emmy Rossum are a few of the celebs who spoke out after Leelah took her own life after struggling for many years as a transgender girl. 

At the Hollywood Temple of Antinous, Antonius Subia said he was devastated by the news, coming on the heels of many hundred deaths this past year involving LBGT youth.

"When these kids say that there is no hope for them, it's because that's all they see," Antonius said.  

"We need to look into our souls and see how we can change the world for them, what we can do to give them hope. The list of Saint nominations for 2015 keeps growing," he said.

"May Antinous take Leelah Alcorn into his arms and give her a place on the Barque of Millions of Years," Antonius added.

Leelah was born in November 1997 to parents Doug and Carla Alcorn. Her birth name was Joshua Ryan Alcorn. One of four children, she was raised in a fundamentalist Christian environment. 

In a suicide note, she referred to herself as Leelah Alcorn.

According to the suicide note, she identified as a transgender female from age 14, when she became aware of the term, having felt "like a girl trapped in a boy’s body" since she was four. 

She subsequently came out online, and turned primarily towards the internet for friendship. 

She attempted to convince her parents that she had to medically transition, but claims she instead received therapy and "biased" counseling from Christian therapists.

The note also describes her coming out as gay at age 16, hoping it would be a stepping stone to coming out as transgender at a later date. 

She wrote that she was instead taken out of school by her parents and cut off from the outside world for five months as her parents denied her access to social media and many forms of communication. She described this as a large contributing factor towards her suicide.

She committed suicide by walking into the path of a tandem-trailer truck on a highway near her home in Ohio on December 28, 2014.

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