The mother of Leelah Alcorn, the transgender teen who killed herself after her parents shunned her identity, still will not support her orientation or even acknowledge it. “We don’t support that, religiously,” Carla Alcorn told CNN in an interview, one week after Leelah Alcorn (born Joshua Alcorn) committed suicide in Ohio. “But we told him that we loved him unconditionally. We loved him no matter what. I loved my son. People need to know that I loved him. He was a good kid, a good boy.” Using masculine pronouns to talk about Leelah throughout the interview, Carla Alcorn has faced backlash for consistently referring to Leelah as “Joshua.” In her suicide note, dated to publish on her Tumblr after she walked in front of a truck at 2:30 a.m. on I-71, Leelah called for her death to mean something. She also wrote about the issues that transgender people face, and detailed how her parents pulled her out of school and took away her electronics. That almost led her to suicide, she said, but once her parents let her see her friends again, she became happy. Unfortunately, the feeling didn’t last. “The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was,” her suicide note reads. “My death needs to mean something.” “My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide … I want someone to look at that number and say ‘that’s f–ked up’ and fix it.” “Fix society,” she pleaded. “Please.” Signed, “(Leelah) Josh Alcorn.” Leelah Alcorn Photos: R.I.P. 1. Leelah Alcorn Photo Leelah Alcorn, an Ohio transgender teen born Joshua Alcorn, has taken her own life, and left behind a suicide note begging for that to mean something. Carla said she and her husband couldn’t afford the surgery required for transition, and her Internet ban was due to her viewing “inappropriate material.” Leelah’s death and note have caused outrage and, ironically, even some hate notes against her parents for the perception of their treatment of Leelah. Carla said people have been calling her and her husband “horrible people” for the way they dealt with their daughter, which included conversion therapy. About two months before her death, Leelah reached out to Reddit, asking users to help her understand whether or not she was facing abuse by her parents. After several users commented back, she drew a conclusion that she summed up as follows, ” I don’t think it’s considered abuse , just s–tty parenting.”
See original here:
Leelah Alcorn Suicide: Mother Still Won’t Acknowledge Teen Was Transgender
