9781626569768

Radical Reflection
Our beliefs about bodies disproportionately impact those whose race,
gender, sexual orientation, ability, and age deviate from our default
notions. The further from the default, the greater the impact. We are
all affected—but not equally.
On December 28, 2014, seventeen-year-old trans youth Leelah Alcorn
intentionally stepped into highway traffic and was hit by an eighteenwheeled
truck. In her suicide note, Leelah detailed her family’s rejection of
her trans identity and their refusal to give her permission to receive genderaffirming
surgery. 38 It is tempting to see Leelah’s story as the individual
allegory of a highly religious family’s dogma and its tragic impact on a
teen. But to allow the analysis to stop there would be to miss the myriad
ways in which systems much bigger than Leelah’s family failed to protect
her. Leelah’s story indicts our entire society for its unwillingness to care for
all bodies, thus making it virtually impossible for some of us to live lives of
radical self-love—or even to continue wanting to live at all. A lack of
school-based resources able to address the needs of trans students,
inaccessible mental health supports, a society that demands that bodies
conform to rigid gender assignments: these larger systemic realities
contributed as much to Leelah’s heart-rending death as her family’s
bigotries. A long line of people and systems blocked Leelah’s vision of a
rich and authentic future for herself. That obstruction ended in her death.
Unapologetic Inquiry #17
If you could share something with Leelah that would have given her
hope, what would you have said? Write it down. Share it with yourself
on the days you are struggling to find hope.
Living with mounting evidence that society at every turn will reject our
attempts to exist unapologetically in our bodies is to live in a state of terror.
Dragging ourselves through a lifetime of self-hate endorsed and encouraged