Leelah Alcorn’s Mother Still Doesn’t Accept Her Identity After Suicide – Hollywood Life

Leelah Alcorn: Mother Still Refuses To Accept Her Identity After Suicide

Carla Alcorn, the mother of teen Leelah Alcorn, still refuses to accept her daughter's transgender identity even after she committed suicide -- truly heartbreaking. Find out what Carla said in her first interview after Leelah's death. In her suicide note, Leelah Alcorn expressed the majority of the pain she felt was due to her parent's inability to accept her as a female. In her first interview after Leelah's suicide, her mother, Carla Alcorn, still used male pronouns and referred to her as "him," "he" and "son."

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Reading Time: 3 minutes
January 2, 2015 11:01AM EST
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Image Credit: Courtesy of Instagram/Facebook

Leelah Alcorn’s Mother Still Doesn’t Accept Her Identity After Suicide

Leelah, who was born a male, identified as a female, much to the consternation of her very religious parents. “We don’t support that, religiously,” Leelah’s mother told CNN about her deceased daughter identifying as a female.

“But we told him that we loved him unconditionally. We loved him no matter what. I loved my son. People need to know that I loved him. He was a good kid, a good boy,” she continued in her interview, which took place on Dec. 31, three days after Leelah took her own life.

In Leelah’s suicide note, she recounted a time where her parent’s mistreated her after learning she was transgender. She wrote: “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.”

In Carla’s interview, she tried to defend her decisions by blaming Leelah’s viewing of ‘inappropriate’ material as the reason for banning her from social media. She did not reveal what she meant by “inappropriate material” in the interview.

Also, when asked why she did not allow her child to have transition surgery, she responded, “we didn’t have the money for anything like that.”

Leelah Alcorn Suicide — Transgender Teen Blames Parents In Note

Before walking in front of a moving truck and killing herself on Dec. 28, Leelah wrote an in depth suicide note explaining her decision. The note started out, “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.”

Possibly one of her most important messages was directed towards the parents of transgendered children. She recounted the moment she told her mother she was transgender:

“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.”

The note Leelah left behind is truly heartbreaking — you can read her full letter HERE.

— Shira Benozilio

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