Transgender Teen Leelah Alcorn Commits Suicide By Walking In Front Of Semi Truck, Blames Parents In Viral Suicide Note


Transgender teen Leelah Alcorn killed herself by jumping in front of a semi during the early hours on Sunday morning in Warren County, along highway I-71. The 17-year-old Ohio teen left a suicide note blaming her Christian parents for her death. Leelah was upset that her parents would not allow her to get the gender transitioning surgery she desired.

Alcorn left a suicide note on her Tumblr account which has since gone viral. Posting the suicide note, Leelah Alcorn said her parents refused to acknowledge her gender and forbid her from transitioning into a female.

The Leelah Alcorn suicide note begins by stating, “If you are reading this, it means that I have committed suicide and obviously failed to delete this post from my queue.”

The note posted by the transgender teenager was scheduled to post just several hours after Alcorn committed suicide by walking onto Ohio I-71 in the Kings Mill area and stepping in front of a tractor-trailer.

transgender teen suicide
Ohio transgender teen Leelah Alcorn committed suicide and blames her parents.

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

The transgender teen went on to say that her parents would not allow her to transition and began taking her to Christian therapists who allegedly told her that she was “selfish and wrong.” Alcorn added in the suicide note, “I formed a sort of a f**k 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.”

Leelah’s viral suicide note goes on to state, “They wanted me to be their prefect little straight Christian boy, and that’s obviously not what I wanted. On my 16th birthday, when I didn’t receive consent from my parents to start transitioning, I cried myself to sleep.”

“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.”

Another excerpt from the suicide letter reads, “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 five 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 sh*t 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.”

The remainder of Leelah’s suicide letter states, “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 sh*t 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. 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 percent 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 sh*t 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 f***ed up” and fix it. Fix society. Please.

Goodbye, (Leelah) Josh Alcorn”

Carla Wood Alcorn posted a memorial tribute to her child on Facebook, but reportedly made no mention of the suicide or any reference to her child’s transgender identity or adopted name. A Facebook group, entitled Justice for Leelah Alcorn, has been created.

Editor’s note: the language of this article has been amended to reflect Leelah Alcorn’s chosen gender identity. The members of the Inquisitr’s management team are sensitive to all people and the article’s original text should in no way should be interpreted as a position on any social issue.

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