Leelah Alcorn's suicide note.

*Suicide Note*

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) Josh¹ Alcorn


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1) Note : Word was stroke out in the original post