Leelah was 17 when she committed suicide a couple of days ago. In a public suicide note on Tumblr which she asked be shared widely, she chronicled the heartbreaking things that lead her to end her life. Leelah placed a lot of the onus on her parents. They refused to honour her identity, refused to listen to her, tried to fix her trans identity through Christian therapy, took away her access to supportive friends, and its in large part because of the choices they made that Leelah is now gone. Even in death, her parents refuse to embrace the child they had. Leelah will be buried in a suit, with the wrong name on her headstone. If anything should serve as a call to parents, this should. I just beg parents to actually LOOK at the person in front of you. To actually LISTEN to what theyre telling you. Believe that as well as you know them, they know themselves even better. Show them the trust and respect they deserve by honouring them for who and what THEY say they are. Refer to them in the ways that they ask you too. Whether theyll always identify in the way they currently do is irrelevant: look at who they are right now, and show how much you love them by accepting them for ALL they are. Forget anything you believed or thought before. Look at your children. Listen to them. Believe them. Be the bastion of support and love they need in a world that will likely treat them very harshly. Just be there for them. Please.
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 21:14:13 +0000
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