Highway Adopted for Trans Teen Leelah Alcorn

In Warren County, Ohio, a stretch of Interstate 71 has been adopted for Leelah Alcorn, the transgender teen who took her own life on the Ohio highway last December.

Leelah died from blunt force trauma after stepping in front of a Freightliner semi-truck. Police investigators found her backpack, with her laptop inside, at the scene, and found searches for suicide prevention and runaway assistance in the computer’s search history.

There was no suicide note … that day. But a note did appear on Leelah’s Tumblr page after her death. In the note she talks of feeling like “a girl trapped in a boy’s body” since she was 4, but didn’t know it was possible for “a boy to become a girl” until 10 years later.

“When I was 14, I learned what transgender meant and cried of happiness. After 10 years of confusion I finally understood who I was. I immediately told my mom, and she reacted extremely negatively, telling me that it was a phase, that I would never truly be a girl, that God doesn’t make mistakes, that I am wrong. 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.”

Leelah Alcorn’s parents took her to see Christian therapists because she must be ill, right? And they refused her requests to aid her in transitioning because of that “illness.” She then told them she was gay, and they reacted by removing her from school, taking away her phone and computer, and isolating her in her room for months because she was “sick.”

And then she killed herself because she saw few choices possible in her future:

“Either I live the rest of my life as a lonely man who wishes he were a woman or I live my life as a lonelier woman who hates herself. There’s no winning. There’s no way out. I’m sad enough already, I don’t need my life to get any worse. People say “it gets better” but that isn’t true in my case. It gets worse. Each day I get worse.”

A group of her friends adopted the highway in her memory through an online campaign begun in August.

“We are keeping her memory alive by adopting and maintaining the stretch of highway where she lost her life, in hopes of bringing to light the issues faced by transgender people and so that these tragedies can be brought to an end.”

I had mixed feelings when I heard about this; I thought that renaming a stretch of roadway where she had taken her life seemed a little callous. No one renames a gun or a rope or a knife or a bottle of pills after the person who committed suicide.

But then I got to thinking … as people drive that road and see those signs with Leelah’s name on them, they might read it and forget it; or, they might read it and remember, and go home and find out about Leelah, who she was and why she died.

And maybe one of those people is another young person feeling different and not knowing why; another young person who might now understand who they are and why they are, and rather than feel alone, rather than feel like they have no choice, decide they can be themselves and they will be themselves.

Maybe Leelah’s name on a road sign will save just one life, and that’s more than enough to make it worthwhile.

Towleroad

Tom Sosnik Comes Out As Transgender

Let’s end the week — or start the next week, depending upon how you roll — with a fabulous story …

Tom Sosnik is just 13-years-old, but he may be the most well-spoken teenager ever. See, Tom is transgender, and after he’d heard the news of the suicide of transgender teen Leelah Alcorn [see my posts HERE and HERE], he wanted to share his story:

“For a while, I dismissed the fact that I hated my body. I pretended to be content with what I was assigned until, at a certain point, I broke. For some of you this may come as a shock, and for others, well, you knew or you thought that I was transgender. Well here’s your reassurance: I am no longer Mia. I never really was. And now I finally stand before you in my true and authentic gender identity as Tom. I stand before you as a thirteen-year-old boy."

I can’t imagine the courage it took to stand up and tell his story, and I am amazed at the reason why he spoke: he wanted his classmates to talk to him, or their parents, about what it means to be transgender, and not just resort to ridiculous name-calling or gossip:

"I really hope that you all will support my decision to embark on a harder route in life as the boy I truly am. Any form of support I receive with much gratitude and I hope that everyone can really support me because you guys are like my second family. And if you support me, I'll feel like the luckiest boy in the world. Thank you for letting me share my story."

It takes a brave soul, a fearless soul, a happy-at-last soul, to share his story the way Tom Sosnik did, and it makes me feel especially good this Sunday morning.

Here’s Tom’s speech in full:

sources:

HuffPo
YouTube
Refinery 29 [picture]

Random Musings

Y’all know this story … on December 27, 2014, Leelah Alcorn, a 17 year old transgender youth wrote posted a suicide note on Tumblr and then walked in front of a semi-truck on a busy highway.

Leelah explained how her parents had forced her to attend conversion therapy, pulled her out of school and isolated her in an attempt to change her gender identity and so a petition has been created to enact Leelah’s Law to Ban All LGBTQ+ Conversion Therapy.

If the petition receives 100,000 signatures within the first 30 days, the White House will respond. Right now, the petition has 93,891 signatures, and needs 6,109 more to qualify by February 2. While it won't guarantee a bill or a law, greater awareness means greater possibility for action.

Take a moment, click HERE, and sign.

Thanks.

Now on to a more fabulous note … Diana Ross will be taking up residency in Las Vegas.

No, Diva ain’t living there, but she will be performing at the Venetian for nine days in April, and could make it a permanent thing.

I need to get my ass to Vegas …. Maybe she’ll ask me to dance with her again.

Down there to Alabama, where marriage equality is becoming legal, the state’s first and only openly gay state legislator, Democratic Representative Patricia Todd has taken to Facebook to fire back at politicians alleging that same-sex marriage would erode "family values" if it becomes legal in Alabama.

Todd called out the hypocrisy of many lawmakers using the rallying cry of "family values" to prop up their anti-gay views when they are having extramarital affairs, and basically says she’ll out these hypocrites.

Here’s my deal: why sink to their level. Patricia? I mean if Joe Blow Congressman is schtupping someone other than the missus, who cares? Outing them only makes The Gays seem vindictive and petty; why not just show statistics from places where same-sex marriage is legal that disprove their idiotic arguments.

Fight negativity with positivity, m’kay.

That said, if Joe Blow Congressman is anti-gay and has a little boytoy on the side, then out him as the ultimate hypocrite.

I hate these closeted gay men and women who seek to deny equal rights to The Gays. They should have their closet doors blown open.

Photo of the Week:

This could be in gossip, except the photo qualifies it for its own segment. While Lohan was hospitalized after her Bora Bora mosquito bite — and no word on how sick the mosquito became after sipping Lohan blood — she was bored. So she began posting selfies in her underwear to the net, but she doesn’t have the Photoshop skills of Queen Bey so …

Notice Lindsay’s remarkably thin waistline? Look at the bottles on the shelf behind her, and how they inexplicably lean toward her.

Bad Photoshop! Bad.

If sometime this evening you hear a blood curdling scream from sea to shining sea, well, it’s Carlos … because I’ve just told him that the next season of Downton Abbey will be the last one. 

Writer Julian Fellowes is ending the show — which was supposed to run for one, maybe two seasons — after its sixth year to work on a new project about 19th century New York.

Brooklyn Abbey?

Just wondering … now, let me get a cold compress for Carlos.

Sometime last year I DVR’d Ten Years because it starred Channing Tatum and he has a habit of baring his most gorgeous ass in all his films. Sadly, in this film, he did not, which only made it even worse than I thought.

The lone bright spot was the character of Reeve, played by Oscar Isaac; his was the only character that wasn’t a stereotype of some high school student at his reunion. Plus, he’s hot.

And this week, I heard that Isaac was to be on The View so I watched … and he’s hotter than that, sweeter than that, smarter than that.

He’s my new Hugh Jackman. I’ve told Carlos that when … when not if … Oscar Isaac comes to Smallville to sweep me off my feet, well, I’ll be going.

Hot. Oh, and he has a new movie out called A Most Violent Year with the faboosh Jessica Chastain. I'm making Carlos see it with me this weekend.

So that rug at the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office that read ‘In Dog We Trust’ instead of ‘In Cat … I kid … God We Trust’ has been replaced and the Oops Version was sold at auction for $9,600.00.

The money will be donated to Canine Estates, a Palm Harbor nonprofit for injured and abandoned animals.

Thank Dog.

I loves me some Nashville …I love that they are taking a risk by having a gay character on the show — I mean, country music and openly gay people don’t generally mix — especially when the gay in question is played by hunky Chris Carmack [down there], who has macked on quite a few dudes since joining the cast.

And maybe, just maybe, he’ll be macking on Kyle Dean Massey [up there] who has joined the show in the recurring role of Kevin Bicks, a successful singer-songwriters in Nashville who also happens to be openly gay.

I expect sparks, Nashville.

I kinda like Sam Smith, that Brit singer who many call … wrongly, I think, the male Adele … though I got tired of him not talking about being gay and yet now that’s all he talks about.

But that’s not the Musing today. When I first heard his single, ‘Stay With Me’ I liked it … because I’d heard it before. I remember tooling down the road and singing along with it, only the words I sang didn’t match up because I was actually singing Tom Petty’s ’I Won’t Back Down.’

And yet I never heard any mention of the similarities until now, when I heard that Smith has agreed to fork over songwriting royalties to Tom Petty after Petty's lawyers called him out on the very apparent similarities.

But I keep wondering why it took so long; I mean, I knew this months ago. Maybe I should be Petty’s lawyer?

I’d never heard of Joni Ernst, the newly elected Republican senator from Iowa, until she was tapped to give the Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union address last week, in which she spoke about her family’s humble beginnings and wearing bread bag on her feet:

“They had very little to call their own except the sweat on their brow and the dirt on their hands. But they worked, they sacrificed, and they dreamed big dreams for their children and grandchildren.”

It all sounds very Joad Family — Google it youngsters — except … Ernst failed to mention that her family did not succeed alone, but had a boatload of federal cash to help them out.

Her father, Richard Culver, received $14,705 in conservation payments and $23,690 in commodity subsidies by the US government, while his brother, Dallas Culver, received $367,141 in federal aid, with some $250,000 geared toward corn subsidies. And the brothers’ late grandfather Harold Culver received $57,479 from the government between 1995 and 2001.

But the farm subsidies weren't the only payments her family received: a construction company owned by Joni’s daddy received more than $200,000 in county contracts while Joni served as auditor of Montgomery County, Iowa, despite a strict conflict of interest code governing contracts to family members of county officials.

Uh huh. I guess with all that government money coming in, Little Joni Ernst never bought a computer to see what a quick Google search would bring up when you start spouting off about being poor and working hard and getting nearly half a million dollars in federal aid.

But she’s a Republican so they don’t like to talk about that stuff. Now, I’m sure her family worked hard — farming is hard — but they did not do it alone, and for her to play it off like they did is the typical GOP bull sh*t.

Shame on you Joni.

Rumor has it — and I heard it from Rachel Maddow — that Bryan Fischer, the virulently anti-gay Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association, has been fired.

Maddow says the firing was due to Israeli press reporting that Reince Preibus and the RNC are taking a trip to Israel which is being funded by the AFA, while Fischer has said, more than once in his program, that "Jews have no right to practice the faith of Judaism in the United States" and that The Gays are behind the Holocaust and Naziism.

Fischer, for his part, says he has not been fired. Stay tuned.

I’d never heard of Hozier before, but one night, driving home from work, I heard this little ditty, ‘Take Me To Church’ and it has been stuck in my head ever since.

It doesn’t hurt that it’s an anti-organized religion tune, which plays up the hypocrisy of organized faith, and that there's a couple of gay guys in it.

An Open Letter to Carla Alcorn

Dear Carla Alcorn,

First off, let me say how sorry I am that your child, Leelah, your daughter, died last week. It broke my heart to hear her story, as I know it broke the hearts of many.

Sadly, it doesn’t seem to have broken your heart because, even after her death, you refuse to see that your child was struggling; you refuse to see that all she wanted was to be loved, to be understood, to be validated. You cannot even be bothered to call her by her name.

And that’s because you and your husband put your “religion” ahead of your child. You said you don’t support that … being transgender … religiously; that is transgender; that was your child; the fact that you didn’t support that caused your child to step onto a highway into oncoming traffic.

I’m sorry for that.

I’m sorry Leelah didn’t have parents who loved her unconditionally; I’m sorry Leelah had parents who, when they were told their own child felt “differently,” and had found a word to explain that difference, that her parents told her she was sick, she was wrong, she needed therapy.

She needed to be loved. She needed to be loved.

Sadly, you seem to forget that he wasn’t a ‘boy,’ but she was a young woman struggling with gender identity and your refusal to see that, understand that, accept that, set your religion aside and just simply  love your child, lead to Leelah’s death.

All of us in that LGBTQ spectrum have had feelings of being different, of not fitting in, and we have all voiced those feelings at some time or another to our parents; luckily, a great many of us had parents who, while not fully understanding what it means to be gay or transgender, still told their children that they loved them.

You told your daughter she was wrong; sure, maybe you can say you didn’t use that word; maybe you can say that she wasn’t transgender because ‘God’ doesn’t make mistakes, but when you took her to therapy, she knew what you thought of her; and it wasn’t love.

And you talked to CNN about the medications your daughter was given by counselors and therapists, and you talked about how Leelah never spoke of being transgender again like she had maybe changed her mind. The fact is she stopped talking to you about being transgender because she knew you didn’t accept her; she kept quiet because, in silence, she knew she would never have to hear you tell her she was wrong any more.

You told CNN that there are all kinds of hateful messages on the internet calling you and your husband “horrible people.” Did you once, just once, think that telling your daughter she was “wrong” was a hateful message, or did you just forget about her and think only about your religion, your faith, what people might say about you knowing you had a transgender child?

Again, I am sorry for your loss. I’m sorry for your lack of acceptance. I’m sorry you don’t understand. I’m sorry you turned your back on your child and she walked away from your house that day and never came back.

She could have been amazing, and now we’ll never know because you told her she was wrong, but it was you, Carla, you and your husband who were wrong. It was the wrong choice of words, and the wrong choice, choosing religion over your own child; wrong choice not listening.

Leelah was right, and she would have been all right had she had parents who truly loved her unconditionally. She could have been amazing … she was on her way. Even in her suicide note, she showed more compassion than her parents, when she asked that you give all of her things and money to the transgender civil rights movement and to transgender support groups:

"The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren't treated the way I was, they're treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights. Gender needs to be taught about in schools, the earlier the better. My death needs to mean something. My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year...Fix society. Please."

And, Carla, you can start fixing things now by calling your daughter by her name:

Leelah Alcorn. Stop refusing to accept that she was Leelah, even in death. She was your daughter, she was your child.

Say her name, Leelah Alcorn. Give her that much.

via CNN

Leelah's story on ISBL

Different Parents, Same Issue, Different Outcome

Josh Alcorn was assigned the male gender at birth but that never felt right, and when he was fourteen he learned what ‘transgender’ meant; he learned that maybe he wasn’t Josh, that maybe she was Leelah. And suddenly everything seemed right; right up until Leelah told her parents.

In a post to her Tumblr blog, Leelah wrote:

“After 10 years of confusion I finally understood who I was. I immediately told my mom, and she reacted extremely negatively, telling me that it was a phase, that I would never truly be a girl, that God doesn’t make mistakes, that I am wrong.”

Can you imagine telling your parent your deepest, darkest secret, one that will finally allow you to live in the light, and having them tell you that you’re wrong?

Leelah’s parents took her to a therapist, a Christian therapist; she says all they did was tell her she was selfish and, again, wrong; they told her to look to God for help. But Leelah knew God couldn’t help, so she waited; she was sixteen, and would wait until she was 18 and then leave home and live her life; at 18 she could begin transitioning.

Still, she rebelled in the only way she knew how: she came out at school as gay, hoping this would shock her parents into understanding who she was; it didn’t. While Leelah’s friends understood, and accepted her as a gay man, her parents grew angrier:

“They felt like I was attacking their image, and that I was an embarrassment to them. They wanted me to be their perfect little straight christian boy, and that’s obviously not what I wanted. So they took me out of public school, took away my laptop and phone, and forbid me of getting on any sort of social media, completely isolating me from my friends. This was probably the part of my life when I was the most depressed … I was completely alone for 5 months. No friends, no support, no love. Just my parent’s disappointment and the cruelty of loneliness.”

Finally, her parents relented — not in accepting their child was transgender, or even gay mind you — and let her have her phone back, let her have her social media back, let her have her friends back. But nothing else changed.

“After a summer of having almost no friends plus the weight of having to think about college, save money for moving out, keep my grades up, go to church each week and feel like shit because everyone there is against everything I live for, I have decided I’ve had enough. I’m never going to transition successfully, even when I move out. I’m never going to be happy with the way I look or sound. I’m never going to have enough friends to satisfy me. I’m never going to have enough love to satisfy me. I’m never going to find a man who loves me. I’m never going to be happy. Either I live the rest of my life as a lonely man who wishes he were a woman or I live my life as a lonelier woman who hates herself. There’s no winning. There’s no way out. “

Leelah Alcorn stepped in front of a moving tractor trailer truck on southbound Interstate 71 in Union Township last Sunday morning.  Now her parents have no child, whether boy or girl; all they have are the memories of an unhappy child, desperate to be heard, to be understood, to be loved; to be herself.

The story could end there, with my heart breaking at the idea of what was done to Leelah Alcorn in the name of God, but there’s another story, this time of a girl assigned the female gender at birth and how her, his, parents dealt with it.

Shiloh has never felt female, has always more identified with male gender, and when she told her mother how she felt, well, her mother said:

“She wants to be a boy. So we had to cut her hair. She likes to wear boys’ everything. She thinks she’s one of the brothers.”

Shiloh even asked to be called John, and her parents, and her family, call him that. His parents don’t know if this is a phase, if they have a daughter who is a tomboy, or a son who desperately wants to be himself, but what they do know is that they love their child, and will do whatever is necessary to make their child happy. They have not looked at Shiloh’s desire to dress and act like a boy as “just a phase.” Instead, the couple has embraced their child, and given her the opportunity to explore who she really is.

And that meant going out with Dad and the brothers one night when Mom was sick; John asked to wear a suit just like his brothers, and so he was given a suit. And all the pictures of John in that suit show a happy child, a contented child, a loved child. And John’s, or Shiloh’s, parents must be happy knowing that their child feels loved and accepted as Shiloh or John, with short hair or long hair, in a suit, or a dress, because, really, that’s what parents should be doing for their children.

At least that’s what Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are doing for John. They are letting their child explore gender, find himself, or herself, where he or she fits in, without fear of being unloved, unwanted.

I’d ask who the better parents are, but it’s very clear the better parents are the ones whose child is still here, walking a red carpet in a suit, and not walking in from of a semi-truck on the highway because her parents told her she was wrong.

Brad and Angelina via Inquisitr

Leelah Alcorn via Patheos