Legal changes and shift in understanding called for in wake of Ohio transgender teen's suicide

Supporters of rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are calling for legal changes and a shift in social understanding in the wake of the death of Leelah Alcorn, an Ohio transgender teenager whose cry of anger and despair expressed in a suicide note has sparked nationwide soul-searching.

Alcorn's death and the note she left behind opened a window to the anguish and mistreatment faced by many transgender teenagers as they struggle to find a place for themselves in the adult world. In the note, which has been deleted from Alcorn's Tumblr feed at the request of her parents but has been archived by her supporters, she recounted the adverse reaction she received from her parents when she told them she had felt like a "girl trapped in a boy's body" since the age of four. Alcorn said her mother told her she would never truly be a girl and that "God doesn't make mistakes". She was taken out of school and barred from using social media.

She was taken to see therapists but, Alcorn noted, only to "christian [sic] 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".

She ended her suicide note with a plea for action: "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****d up' and fix it. Fix society. Please."