FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Princeton, NJ (December 30, 2014) – Leelah Alcorn Suicide – A Call to End Conversion Therapy
Mental health professionals and transgender people are painfully aware that trying to force a person into a false gender identity can severely harm the individual, and may ultimately lead to death. Leelah was subjected to a discredited and life threatening practice known as “conversion therapy” by her parents, which, combined with active suppression of her gender identity, ultimately brought about her death.
This practice has been roundly condemned as dangerous and ineffective by the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association, among others. They and we believe that no transgender person should ever be subjected to psychological brainwashing tactics. Nor should any parent or teen ever be led to believe that such “therapy” can have any beneficial effect.
In honor of Leelah Alcorn, we call for the immediate creation of a federal law to be known as Leelah’s Law to prohibit dangerous ‘conversion therapy’ for transgender, gay, lesbian and bisexual youth. The use of any religion-based “conversion therapy” is an atrocity against our youth and must be banned in all fifty states.
Support for this effort from our community:
From the Ali Forney Center: “Religion-based rejection devastates the lives of too many trans youths. At the Ali Forney Center we serve hundreds of trans youths who are homeless because of the same kind of rejection that Leelah Alcorn described. A healthy society promotes safety for all children; it is painfully apparent that transphobia horribly endangers trans youths.”
Jennifer Louise Lopez of Everything Transgender in New York City (ETNYC) states, “The loss of Leelah Alcorn due to suicide is a step back in the wonderful progress we have made in the transgender community in 2014. It shows that there is still a lot of work to be done around family rejection of their transgender family members. In 2014 Everything Transgender in New York City (ETNYC) released a statistics report which listed a 58% family rejection rate toward Transgender people who come out of the closet and a 41% suicide rate. The suicide of Ms. Alcorn tells us that we will have a lot of work to do in the community to greatly reduce these statistics.”
Contact Info:
The Human Rights Institute
Jennifer Louise Lopez, ETNYC (Everything Transgender in New York City), [email protected]
Debi Jackson, Trans-Parenting.com, [email protected]
Alex Roque, Ali Forney Center, [email protected]
Religion is no excuse to harass anyone, no matter the situation.
Thousands Petition To Put Trans* Teen Leelah Alcorn’s Chosen Name On Headstone | OK Fashion
[…] to enact a law banning so-called „Conversion Therapy.“ They’re also calling for donations in Leelah’s name to the Transgender Human Rights […]
We should all be there for people in the need, and let the people be free, we can’t change the nature, if someone feel boy let it be a boy, if someone want to be a girl ,let it be a girl !
Why is it always so crazy with humans?
Over and over with people into a religion !???
They want us , free people, dead !
We can’t leave the things like this !
I truely suppert, from Belgium
Love and Happyness
i questioned my sexual identity when i was 14 years old. but i remained in denial until i was 57, when i finally admitted to myself who i really was. i do consider myself lucky and very blessed that i have gotten 99% support (most people that support me don’t understand why i did what i did, but support me anyway) from family and friends. may God accept Leelah into His loving arms!
I note her blog has been deleted but has been duplicated on Tumblr. Not sure if the parents deleted it. However there is a post on Reddit that Leelah posted about two months ago asking the question, “Is this considered abuse?” and I seriously would ask that someone please have the Ohio police and authorities look into that or report it to them as abuse, because reading the page I find it seriously upsetting that she was not aware of her rights and was being verbally abused by her parents in ways she should not have been which would have contributed greatly to her depression and suicide.
How the mother can front up on CNN and be two faced enough to say they did not religiously support her but loved her and so on is beyond me reading that page. A child would not exaggerate about those things.
The whole thread and her comments do outline that she went through a lot of distress and I wonder if the main media even have the url to report it?
RIP Leelah. Hope you find some peace and feel free wherever you are.
http://www.reddit.com/r/asktransgender/comments/2km6yt/is_this_considered_abuse/