Yes, I find it sad when someone is driven to suicide. It's weird, I know.

I feel that a man who dresses up as a woman in their free time did not decide for himself that gay/trans people are evil. This man probably had been lying to himself and others about who he was for decades, living through self-hate and trying to convince himself that he was "normal" and not "one of those fags" and the like.

Now that he's accepted himself and thought that he was safe to express who he was in private online communities (obviously stupid for someone in his position), his whole world is coming down on him. Now everyone knows he's "one of them".

I don't know enough about the guy to comment with certainty on what harm he may have caused as mayor, if he actively made life harder for gay/ trans people then that's really shitty of him. All I'm saying is, things don't happen in a vacuum, and this guy is just as much a victim of hate and bigotry as anyone else who's killed themselves over it.

It's easy for me to judge living in anonymity in a progressive city with a supporting network around me (I'm trans).

More likely she was raised conservative, built a career and family around it, in a small southern town where maintaining that facade is the only way to be accepted, then realized "oh shit I'm trans" and panicked.

At that point, I can totally understand how difficult it would be to escape decades of baggage. Many trans ppl are reluctant to come out for precisely those reasons: career, family, lack of acceptance. The result is turmoil.

I view her more as a lost trans sibling who was born into a cruel world and should be mourned, while not excusing her poor choices of political affiliation. I'm sure it was a daily struggle trying to reconcile what conservatives were saying about people like her, with her own identity.

Not everyone is strong enough to fight this fight.

Seriously. He wouldn't have killed himself if he was surrounded by accepting people.

It's still tragic that someone felt they couldn't be themself, but when you spend your time empowering intolerance and then find yourself a target of that intolerance? I have no tears to spare.

That's tragic, heartbreaking and a good question to ask.

But unfortunately I think the answer is yes. Bigots are happy, any queer death is a reinforcement that their methods work. All are so quick to say "trans people are mentally ill" and the immediately do their best to make that person's life a living hell, which is some twisted cruel logic. They don't want us to exist, they call to exterminate us from public life and they think by making our lives difficult enough we can be shamed in to non-existentance.

We can't let them win. Because victory is literally death, but we will always have to remember those who fell, honor their memory and use their tale as a warning against every piece of shit conservative bathroom bill deadname enforcement and trans healthcare blockade. Because unfortunately, trans people as a whole are very directly under attack. Please vote accordingly.