U.S. highway commemorates Leelah Alcorn

A tribute has been erected on the I-71 stretch of highway in Warren County, Ohio, where the transgender teenager Leelah Alcorn took her own life last year.

The 17 year old’s suicide gained huge public attention in 2014, and awoke a debate around transgender issues, and conversion therapy, which Alcorn said she had been subjected to.

Her parents had objected to using her female name on her headstone, and had her suicide note removed from Tumblr, in which Alcorn had blamed them for trying to make her their “perfect little straight Christian boy.”

Alcorn’s friends and supporters have now teamed up to participate in the state’s Adopt-a-Highway program, placing a sign reading ‘In memory of Leelah Alcorn’ along the highway where her body was found. It was placed there on Friday, for International Transgender Day of Remembrance, which is in memory of all those members of the trans community who have lost their lives.

A Facebook page for the highway commemoration says, “We are keeping her memory alive by adopting and maintaining the stretch of highway where she lost her life, in hopes of bringing to light the issues faced by transgender people and so that these tragedies can be brought to an end.”