The first time Abby Jones talked to Leelah Alcorn, it was summer, when Alcorn had just taken a new job as a caricaturist at an Ohio amusement park.
“She had this light,” Jones told The Washington Post. “She would make these jokes, and say these things quietly that were really funny. Basically, we were soon best friends.”
The last time Abby Jones talked to Leelah Alcorn was on Christmas morning.
By then, she knew of the struggles Alcorn endured. She knew that Alcorn’s given name was Joshua and that she was transgender. She knew Alcorn’s parents resisted their child’s urge to transition. And she knew about Leelah’s depression.
Jones didn’t notice anything amiss.
“She was talking about her New Year’s resolutions, and how she was going to try to be more happy and accept people for who they were,” Jones said. “It was a really light-hearted conversation. And then on Sunday, when I heard what happened, I was just in shock.”
That morning, about 2:30 a.m., Alcorn, 17, had walked 4 miles from her middle-class home in King Mills, Ohio, to Interstate 71. There, according to media reports, she was struck by a Freightliner semi-truck. The driver has not been charged, and local authorities continue to investigate.
Jones said she knows what happened: Her friend committed suicide.
Support for that conclusion was etched on Alcorn’s Tumblr page, where she posted an impassioned “suicide note” that has attracted worldwide attention, spawning a trending hashtag #LeelahAlcorn.
Transgender advocates have seized upon her words as a clarion call for transgender rights. The conversation sparked by her death is what Alcorn said she wanted. She spoke of being caught between two genders, trapped among adults who she said couldn’t understand.
“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,” she wrote in her note. “… My death needs to mean something. … My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year. … Fix society. Please.”
