BTW I copied the text of Acorn's suicide note.
Two things I would like to note, in sum:
(1) the Christian counselors were described as not helping but only projecting and saying this person was wrong and needed to change. Francis MacNutt, in his book on Can Homosexuality be Healed, stressed the important factor of NOT imposing this way and expecting anyone to heal of anything. The environment of Healing and forgiveness is what allows the change in the person's life. And the Christian gay theology student who spoke at my college said she came to terms with accepting she was born gay, and wouldn't change, AFTER going through the healing prayer. So even when she DIDN'T change her orientation she became at Peace with it.
That is the one place that i could imagine Christians telling Alcorn about being wrong:
that YES you can be happy and you CAN receive healing and fulfillment in life by FORGIVING
what is making you feel worried and depressed.
(2) the other thing I must note
this person sounds completely reasonable and workable with
I think in fact, easier to talk with than the young man who came out as transgendered online
with me and argued, even cut me off and threatened never to email again, when I first brought up
the idea that Christianity DIDN'T judge by physical gender and the issue was spiritual balance between male
and female, and the physical roles would follow. Not to make conditions out of this, and to forgive if society did.
So if it took me several weeks to work things out with my friend online, who was very stubborn and afraid,
but eventually came out as transgender and embraced this part and felt loved,
then I think there was hope for this kid who sounds every bit capable of workign this out.
Just lost the will to live with depression. But sounds more reasonable than another person I interacted with who WAS able to finish the conversation and work things out to come to peace about being transgender, and actually finding more joy and love in forgiveness and healing than before when "he" was trying to be something "he" was not and resented it.
From reading this note below, I don't think this kid was unreachable:
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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 "**** 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) Josh Alcorn
Read more at
snopes.com Death of Leelah Alcorn
===========================
BTW as for the petition to change Alcorn's headstone,
I think if he did not kill himself, perhaps you could ask the family.
But I would not encourage more young people to kill themselves for public sympathy
and then pressure the family afterwards.
Why reward and encourage suicide.
I would be careful to try to work with the family and not add any more pressure.
If we are going to heal this whole situation, we need to work WITH
the family not against them or that is not helping this soul find peace.
We all need to be at peace, and not at the expense of pressuring or blaming the family
or anyone else. That isn't helping the goal this kid asked for.