Sam Taub

One of the best things Caitlyn Jenner did in her acceptance speech for the Arthur Ashe Award is to mention Sam Taub.

Until Caitlyn mentioned him, I'd never heard of him.  I would be that almost no one else had, either.

You see, she is one of those people who could have been another statistic--another transgender teenager who committed suicide--had Jenner not mentioned her.

The Detroit-area teen came from a troubled background:  His parents split up and his father got sole custody of him.  His father at least tried to support him when he said he was living in the wrong body. As an example, they went on shopping trips that resulted in a complete turnover of his wardrobe.  His mother, on the other hand, while saying that she had nothing against trans people, wants him to be remembered in death as a "happy little girl" named Samantha who "loved ice-skating and music and having her hair done and shopping".

Since I know neither Sam nor his mother, I will not blame her for his taking his own life.  Nor will I say that what the father did was "too little, too late".  More important than assigning blame to anyone--if indeed there is any to assign--is to understand how overwhelming it is for anyone, let alone a teenager--even with the most loving family and friends--to come to terms with, and negotiate a way of living in, the gender of her or his mind and spirit.

It's hard enough for any teenager to learn who she or is, even under the best of conditions. Even the most confident and resilient of young people don't have the emotional resources to deal with being what most of society still considers to be a freak--or the perspective to realize that it can get better, never mind that it does get better, as Dan Savage assures us.

Frankly, I don't know how I made it through that part of my life. Or my twenties.  Or my thirties.  Or the first few years of my forties.  There were good times, to be sure.  But sometimes it seems that the scars of rejection and alienation will never heal, especially to a teenager.

So, Caitlyn Jenner, thank you for another valuable service you've performed.  You couldn't save Sam Taub's life--or Leelah Alcorn's, or that of any other trans person who's committed suicide.  But at least there's less chance that their deaths will be in vain.  

Ash Haffner: Transgender Teen Commits Suicide

As if it wasn't bad enough that transgender women are being murdered simply for being who they are, transgender teenagers are taking their own lives for the same reason.

More precisely, they are killing themselves because of the bullying, harassment and other mistreatment they incur because others don't accept them.  And trans women are being murdered by people who hate them.  It's almost as if their killers are those schoolyard bullies, a bit older and with more brute strength and lethal weapons.

The difference is, of course, that the trans women I mentioned were killed by someone else, while the trans teens--including the one I'm going to tell you about--killed themselves.

Ash Haffner stepped into oncoming traffic near his North Carolina home this past Friday. That, of course, is the way Leelah Alcorn killed herself in Ohio.  Like her, 16-year-old Ash left a suicide note.

However, their messages were very different.  This is what Ash left on his iPad:

'Please be WHO YOU ARE... Do it for yourself. Do it for your happiness. That's what matters in YOUR life. You don't need approval on who you are. Don't let people or society change who you are just because they're not satisfied with your image.' 

I wish he could have continued to live by his own advice.  But, I have long reckoned that any human being can only take so much.  And, as we know, it's harder for a 16-year-old to believe "It Gets Better" --which, of course, is the reason why Dan Savage does everything he can to bring that message to young people.  The bullying, intense as it was, got worse after he cut his hair and asked to be referred to as "he".

According to the report I read, his mother supported his transition but continued to use the pronoun "she".  Some may say she didn't help his self-esteem.  But I know, from experience, that when someone has known you all of your life in the gender and by the names you were given at birth, it's difficult for that person to switch names and pronouns. Sometimes that person will "slip up" even long after the rest of the world sees you as being of the gender in which you're living.  Somehow I think Ash understood this and had no intention of implicating his mother or family.

But at least Ash's message is some attempt to give others the hope he lost.  That is in marked contrast to what Leelah, a year older, wrote in the last post of her blog, which her family deleted:


If you are reading this, it means that I have committed suicide and obviously failed to delete this post from my queue.

Please don’t be sad, it’s for the better. The life I would’ve lived isn’t worth living in… because I’m transgender. I could go into detail explaining why I feel that way, but this note is probably going to be lengthy enough as it is. To put it simply, I feel like a girl trapped in a boy’s body, and I’ve felt that way ever since I was 4. I never knew there was a word for that feeling, nor was it possible for a boy to become a girl, so I never told anyone and I just continued to do traditionally “boyish” things to try to fit in.

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.

My mom started taking me to a therapist, but would only take me to christian therapists, (who were all very biased) so I never actually got the therapy I needed to cure me of my depression. I only got more christians telling me that I was selfish and wrong and that I should look to God for help.

When I was 16 I realized that my parents would never come around, and that I would have to wait until I was 18 to start any sort of transitioning treatment, which absolutely broke my heart. The longer you wait, the harder it is to transition. I felt hopeless, that I was just going to look like a man in drag for the rest of my life. On my 16th birthday, when I didn’t receive consent from my parents to start transitioning, I cried myself to sleep.

I formed a sort of a “fuck you” attitude towards my parents and came out as gay at school, thinking that maybe if I eased into coming out as trans it would be less of a shock. Although the reaction from my friends was positive, my parents were pissed. 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, and I’m surprised I didn’t kill myself. I was completely alone for 5 months. No friends, no support, no love. Just my parent’s disappointment and the cruelty of loneliness.

At the end of the school year, my parents finally came around and gave me my phone and let me back on social media. I was excited, I finally had my friends back. They were extremely excited to see me and talk to me, but only at first. Eventually they realized they didn’t actually give a shit about me, and I felt even lonelier than I did before. The only friends I thought I had only liked me because they saw me five times a week.

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. 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.

That’s the gist of it, that’s why I feel like killing myself. Sorry if that’s not a good enough reason for you, it’s good enough for me. As for my will, I want 100% of the things that I legally own to be sold and the money (plus my money in the bank) to be given to trans civil rights movements and support groups, I don’t give a shit which one. 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. I want someone to look at that number and say “that’s fucked up” and fix it. Fix society. Please.

Goodbye,
(Leelah) Josh Alcorn

More than anything, her message reflects the lack of whatever support Ash had.  Leelah ends her message about what needs to be done in society, but has resigned herself to not seeing it. Still, her blog post, like Ash's note, is an example of what Miguel de Unamuno meant by "Hombre muere de frio, no de oscuridad" (Man dies of cold, not of darkness.)  Both teens killed themselves because they were left out in the cold.  All we can do is take them in, take in their spirits and take in those who are left.

Trans Man Opens Up In Response To Leelah

As you can imagine, Leelah Alcorn's suicide note--which, along with her blog, was deleted by her mother--touched many of us.

It inspired Alex Shearer, a trans man in Iowa to talk about his life with the Des Moines Register:

The Truth She Owes Leelah

On doit des egards aux vivants; on ne doit aux morts que la verite.

Voltaire wrote that to the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe nothing but the truth.

His message, however crudely I've translated it, is one that hasn't reached the family of Leelah Alcorn.

You see, they contacted Tumblr and requested that Leelah's blog--which ended with the suicide note I reproduced in one of my posts last week--be removed.  And those fucking cowards at Tumlr went along with it.

I didn't read the entire blog, but I read parts of it--including some that ranted and railed against her family, particularly her mother, who wouldn't recognize her as the girl she was.  

It's one thing to say that your trans kid is "going through a phase."  It's still another to deny your kid's identity and create a fiction about her suicide.  That is what Mrs. Alcorn did in this note:

"My sweet 16 year old son, Joshua Ryan Alcorn went home to Heaven this morning.  He went out for an early morning walk and was hit by a truck."

You fucking clueless bitch, your daughter Leelah walked in front of truck barreling down the interstate.  She wasn't the victim of some random unfortunate incident; you killed her with your unwillingness to listen to her.  

I mean, if you don't want to acknowledge her as the person she was, why can't you at least admit the truth about her death?  Maybe you can't give her all of the truth you--and we--owe her, but at least it would be a start.

Instead, you've chosen, in essence, to eliminate all traces of the existence of your daughter.

It looks like you were born a few decades too late to pursue your true calling:  You should have been an information or propoganda or some such minister for Hitler or Mao.  After all, they wanted to erase the existence of certain people from history.  

Since you can't follow that line of work--and look at where it left them in history!--why don't you just honor the love you claim to have had for your child with the only thing it, and she, deserve--the truth.

Give Leelah What She Deserves

The funeral for Leelah Alcorn was moved because of threats to disrupt it.

When I heard about that, I thought that perhaps the Westboro Baptist Church folks and others of their ilk were going to show up with signs reading "God Hates Fags!" or other profundities for which they're known.

Nobody is saying who made the threats or what the "disruptions" would be.  In fact, the first article I read about the change in venue said only that the family received threats, but did not specify that they were threats to "disrupt" the funeral.

This all sounds really fishy to me.  It seems that someone in the news media is upset or scared that we're starting to make some gains in our campaign for equality and that there's been an uproar over the way Leelah's mother reacted to her death.  So that someone--perhaps there's more than one--wants to portray us as a menace that we're not.

If threats were indeed made by our allies, I don't support or condone them.  If anything, they only make us look as if we're stooping to the level of the Westboro people and other haters.  Not only is it bad public relations, it is corrosive to the spirit.  We need all the spirit, all the courage, all of the intelligence, all the creativity, all the compassion we can muster; we can't afford to let the haters take any of it from us. 

I'm not saying we shouldn't be angry with Leelah's mother or do everything we can to convince her to bury her with "Leelah" on the tombstone.  I just think that in order to accomplish that--or to achieve any other victories--we simply must not become like the haters from whom people like Leelah's mother take their cues, however blindly.

I say these things, not only because I am a transsexual woman, but because I have begun, within the past year and a half, to follow the dictates of my faith and become active in a church.  One reason I had denied those things to myself for a long time--even after I realized that my gender transition has been a profoundly spiritual experience--was that people used their religion as a basis for hating and even killing us.  But I have learned that there are many people who don't use their religion in that way, and that I have no choice but to become one of them. Perhaps some of the haters will, too.  Perhaps Mrs. Alcorn will understand this.  I want that even more than I want her to recognizer her daughter as her daughter and bury her with the name she chose to reflect her female spirit.
 

Petition For Leelah's Law

So...What are your wishes for the New Year?

One of mine is that a "Leelah's Law" is passed to ban "conversion therapy" everywhere in the US.

I'll confess that my idea is not original:  Dan Savage has called for it.  And I'm sure someone else thought of such a law before Leelah Alcorn's suicide murder.  Now there's a petition for it on Change.org.  Please sign it! 

Mainstream psychiatric and medical organizations say that "conversion therapy"--which is usually used to try to turn gay people straight ("pray the gay away") but is also sometimes used as an attempt to purge trans people of the notion that they are gender by which they identify themselves--has no basis in scientific or medical research or practice.  In fact, those organizations warn of the potential hazards of "conversion therapy", including the innacurate views about sexual orientation and gender identity that it helps to support, and about the potential damage from the practices involved in the "therapy."  

In fact, the common practices used by "Christian therapists" and others who practice "conversion therapy" are all but never used in any other kind of therapeutic or medical practice.  And, of course, there are concerns about the qualifications of those who practice "conversion therapy".  Some have not engaged in any other kind of practice; in fact, some are not even trained to conduct pyschotherapy or to provide any sort of health care.  This is especially true in some states with lax requirements for licensing--or where people can certify themselves as "counselors" and practice things like "conversion therapy" by giving them other names.

Anyone who practices "conversion therapy" on a minor should be indicted for child abuse; anyone who practices it on an adult should be charged with fraud, at least, and perhaps terrorism.  Finally, I think any parent who forces his or her kid into "conversion therapy" should lose his or her right to be a parent.

The Murder Of Leelah Alcorn

I find it interesting that my most-read post has become "A Lifespan of 30 to 32 Years, And A Lost Generation"--and that, in fact, there's been a spike in the number of people who've read it.  

While the figures came from Argentina, they are probably applicable to many other countries.  What those numbers tell us is, among other things, that too many of us die too soon, and for the same reason: hate.

Even in countries with trans-friendly laws and policies--like Argentina--or those where there is a high level of education and awareness among many sectors of the population, or those with advanced medical care, the life expectancy of trans people is shorter, often by decades, than it is for the rest of the population.

Much of the reason for this is the discrimination and other forms of rejection that leave too many of us unemployed and homeless--or, in the cases of many younger trans people, selling drugs or their bodies on mean streets and desolate back alleys.  Resorting to such things to survive means, of course, that death--whether by a needle, bullet or knife, or from within--can come at any moment.

But for every one who dies that way, there are others who die by their own hand.  I can't even begin to count how many times I contemplated suicide when I was living as male.  And I know that two friends of mine killed themselves because they could not deal with the conflict between what their minds and spirits told them, what their bodies indicated and what expectations they tried to fulfill--and the rejection, shame, ridicule and pure-and-simple meanness they faced in spite (or, perhaps, because) of their efforts.

Add to those numbers Leelah Alcorn of Kings Mills, Ohio.  The 17-year-old left this on her blog, Lazer Princess:

If you are reading this, it means that I have committed suicide and obviously failed to delete this post from my queue.

Please don’t be sad, it’s for the better. The life I would’ve lived isn’t worth living in… because I’m transgender. I could go into detail explaining why I feel that way, but this note is probably going to be lengthy enough as it is. To put it simply, I feel like a girl trapped in a boy’s body, and I’ve felt that way ever since I was 4. I never knew there was a word for that feeling, nor was it possible for a boy to become a girl, so I never told anyone and I just continued to do traditionally “boyish” things to try to fit in.

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.

My mom started taking me to a therapist, but would only take me to christian therapists, (who were all very biased) so I never actually got the therapy I needed to cure me of my depression. I only got more christians telling me that I was selfish and wrong and that I should look to God for help.

When I was 16 I realized that my parents would never come around, and that I would have to wait until I was 18 to start any sort of transitioning treatment, which absolutely broke my heart. The longer you wait, the harder it is to transition. I felt hopeless, that I was just going to look like a man in drag for the rest of my life. On my 16th birthday, when I didn’t receive consent from my parents to start transitioning, I cried myself to sleep.

I formed a sort of a “fuck you” attitude towards my parents and came out as gay at school, thinking that maybe if I eased into coming out as trans it would be less of a shock. Although the reaction from my friends was positive, my parents were pissed. 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, and I’m surprised I didn’t kill myself. I was completely alone for 5 months. No friends, no support, no love. Just my parent’s disappointment and the cruelty of loneliness.

At the end of the school year, my parents finally came around and gave me my phone and let me back on social media. I was excited, I finally had my friends back. They were extremely excited to see me and talk to me, but only at first. Eventually they realized they didn’t actually give a shit about me, and I felt even lonelier than I did before. The only friends I thought I had only liked me because they saw me five times a week.

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. 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.

That’s the gist of it, that’s why I feel like killing myself. Sorry if that’s not a good enough reason for you, it’s good enough for me. As for my will, I want 100% of the things that I legally own to be sold and the money (plus my money in the bank) to be given to trans civil rights movements and support groups, I don’t give a shit which one. 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. I want someone to look at that number and say “that’s fucked up” and fix it. Fix society. Please.

Goodbye,
(Leelah) Josh Alcorn

"Please don't be sad, it's for the better."   If a line like that isn't a gut-punch, I don't know what is.  "The life I would've lived isn't worth living in"--wait for it--"because I'm transgender."  As I relate that line, I am not fighting tears, but I am fighting the anger I feel roiling up from within me.  

She felt that her life wouldn't be worth living because she was transgender.  I felt the same goddamned fucking way when I was her age, and before that, and long after that.  (I will curse through the rest of this post. I make no apologies.)  It's been a long time since I was her age, but from reading her note, I have to conclude not one fucking thing has changed.  Not one.  

The only difference is that she experienced, overtly, the sort of hostility I might've faced had I "come out" as a teenager.  As it was, I experienced taunts and innuendoes.  But she at least had "friends" on social media who were supportive.  However, she lost them for five months because her parents pulled her out of public school and forbade her from using social media.  

Now, if I had a trans child, I might take him or her out of public school for one reason:  bullying, whether it came from other kids, teachers or administrators.  I would educate that child myself, or hire people who could. And I would not allow anyone to wreck whatever self-esteem my child might have.

Unfortunately, Leelah's parents didn't think that way.  They fancied themselves as devout Christians and, from what I've read, it seems that her mother in particular was particularly judgmental and un-accepting.  She enrolled Leelah in "Christian" school and sent her to "Christian" therapists, who told her she was a selfish sinner who should simply let God help her become the man He intended her to be.

Notice that I used the word "Christian" in quotation marks and said Leelah's parents fancied themselves as Christians.  Well, I have a good reason for that.  If you've been following this blog, you might recall that I started going to church about a year and a half ago.  Sometimes I struggle with it precisely because of people like Leelah's parents--of whom, fortunately, there are none (that I know of, anyway) in my parish--and folks like the Reverend Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church.  I don't claim to have the "right" interpretation of the Bible or of Christianity.  Then again, I'm not sure anybody does.  Still, I cannot understand how anyone can call him- or her-self a Christian when he or she is using faith and the Bible to rationalize hate and intolerance. 

If you think I am being harsh, take a look at what Leelah's mother wrote:

"My sweet 16 year old son, Joshua Ryan Alcorn went home to Heaven this morning.  He went out for an early morning walk and was hit by a truck."

Bitch, are you fucking clueless, or what?  Your daughter walked in front of a truck on I-71 after writing the post telling us that her life would never be worth living.  She didn't "go out for an early morning walk" any more than my friend Corey was measuring the height of his ceiling when he hung himself from the rafter.

Whatever else happens, I hope that Leelah's last request--that all of her belongings be sold and the proceeds donated to transgender civil rights and support groups--is honored.  And I hope, Mrs. Alcorn, that you understand what agape and philia are and that, if you can give to your daughter, now, what you couldn't give her in life--and that, if you have other kids, you can give it to them.

If you can't, I hope others will.  I will, as best as I can.  That is one reason why I won't abandon the faith I re-discovered so recently in my life.