Dear Leelah,
You are no one I have met or ever would have met, but I needed you. I needed you, and now I cannot clear your words from my head or your passion from my voice or the twin searing pinpricks of headlights out of my eyes. Your words claim that your life is not worth living because of who you are. Your words have shaken me to my core because, while they are yours, they are also all of ours.
They are the words I did not whisper to my lover when I left her so that she would not be the one to find my body when I locked my door and downed a pharmacy in a poetic nod to the prescription addiction that was killing her. They are the words that earned my boyfriend an extra week of inpatient time when he told me he knew it would hurt me and his parents but he was in fact going to kill himself as soon as he got out of the hospital. They are the words tucked between my fingers and my best friend's hair as he lay his shaking head in my lap, convinced he would be murdered if he went back to work on the all-male team that menacingly suggested he find another bathroom tomorrow.
These are the words of every lover I have ever been with because every single one of them has a history of suicide attempts. These are the words of every queer person I have ever loved-- every one of us covering broken hearts with hair dye and broken skin with tattoos, every one of us a piece of art, a tribute to survival-- because every single one of us has a history of depression, anxiety, rejection, phobias, self hatred, self harm, eating disorders, addictions, pain, terror, tragedy. Every one of us is a product of recovery from internalized hatred of all things different and brave.
These words are the words of every queer I know: We needed you. You were one of the brave ones. You were one of the bright flames. We needed you. You were the only you we had.
You weren't a mistake. You weren't. Your identity was real and your thoughts and dreams were valid. Other people make mistakes; other people broke you in the process of trying to fix a part of you that wasn't broken.
Your note begs parents never to invalidate their children. You sought to save lives even on the day you gave yours away. You even requested that your possessions be sold and all proceeds be donated "to trans civil rights movements and support groups"— You said you "don't give a shit which one." Leelah—you sassy snarky brave sweet kind compassionate sensitive soul— we needed you! You and your universal words: you just want us all to be "treated like humans." You want our parents to respect and affirm our identities while we are still growing into them; you want someone to look at the statistics on transgender suicide, "look at that number and say 'that's fucked up' and fix it. Fix society, please."
Those were your last words. Fix society, please.
People are saying your note 'speaks of a struggle with your identity.' I want to punch those people in the face. You did not cry out because you struggled with your identity. You cried out because everyone ELSE struggled with your identity. You knew exactly who you were; you were not respected as such. My promise to you, Leelah, is that I will shut down EVERYONE who dares to suggest that being transgender, that being who you are, is part of the problem. It is people who think that who are part of the problem. You. Were. Not. Wrong.
When I wrote this, your original post had almost one hundred and thirty six THOUSAND notes on it, not counting the news articles, the buzzfeed posts, the people like me memorializing your words in their art in an effort to soothe your and our broken hearts. There is debate about sharing your post— about giving a group at such a high risk for suicide access to a suicide note that validates their loneliness and confirms that people will indeed be sad and sorry if they die. I've heard it's irresponsible to make your words public for that reason.
I believe just the opposite. I believe EVERYONE needs to know that your loneliness was valid, and I think every at-risk youth needs to know how sad and sorry the world would be if they died. They don't need to be protected from your dark thoughts if they are already having similar ones; they need to see that we come together in the hundreds of thousands to fight against those dark thoughts, in ANY hurting mind. They need to see that we would be sad if they were gone. We need them, like we needed you. They need to hear that. You needed to hear that.
I share your words because you matter and your voice deserves to be heard, because your pain is valid and familiar, and because people standing in shoes too similar to yours need to hear the heartbroken but-I-love-you's that strangers are directing to you and people like you— which is to say, them. I share your words because your final wish is to support our cause. I share because even though you believed your own life was hopeless, your last words were a hopeful plea that we change things.
I will tell the queer youth of the world who feel like you did that their feelings are normal and valid and real, that these dark thoughts don't make them wrong and are fightable, and that over 136,000 strangers want them to stay alive. I will tell them—I will beg them— not to leave us like you did. I will tell them they are all part of the great big spark we call family; that, whether we meet or not, we need them.
We need you.
View this video on YouTube
A video reading of this letter. The text has been updated since the posting of this video.
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