I have read much about the incidents occurring in Lucy's life from the beginnings of her transition to the tragic end. Arguments rage, the press is trying to do a whitewash job and accusing us of using Lucy's death solely as a propaganda tool. There is even dissent within the trans community, one transvestite saying the article wasn't that bad and being supported in her views by somebody I once had great respect for. Another gender queer person has blamed it on the RLE (Real Life Experience). However I don't think the RLE argument holds water as Lucy had good support from her head, the school governors and from the
rest of her colleagues. She was also loved by all her pupils by most
accounts of what I have read. She was doing a job that she obviously loved doing and she was finally on the verge of becoming the person that she had always believed that she was - so why would she do this??
Yes, she had had ideation of
suicide in the past from other articles that I have read - I think most of us have been there before
transition, the thought that we might have to fight this thing for ever,
to always live a lie. For most of us transition is a release from that prison, that hell that existed before.
However, the pressure escalated after the Daily
Mail mocked her existence (by the incessant use of wrong names and wrong
pronouns they delighted in rubbing that salt into the wounds, by
inferring that she was not fit to teach young children, that she would
be a danger to them - and, like I have said previously in other online forums, by publishing the
Jimmy Saville piece within the same article - and hence guilt by association). She was then weakened and
exhausted after 3 months of dodging the press parked outside her house
and the school and the information as to what the press was doing was
being relayed to her.
Studies have also shown that negative media exposure of this type can result in depression and increased risk of suicide.
People when they are exhausted can do
silly things (like leaving a gas fire on unlit, or leaving something on the stove which can boil over whilst she fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, extinguishing the flame and the gas still keeps pouring out - exhaustion can also do funny things, like taking too many tablets for instance)........... or, it could be, that in the end she
had simply had enough and took her own life as the only means of peace
that she thought she could find. It might even be that we will never know for certain what happened on that awful day.
I know at least three teachers
of primary school aged children and two secondary school teachers who
have transitioned at their schools and did not have a problem
whatsoever, but they were not outed to the media in such a savage way
and did not have the gutter press parked on their doorstep for months on
end.
It was not the RLE that caused this, she could have coped
with that as she had support all around her. It was something far more
malicious that either caused an accidental death or made her so
exhausted that she did, indeed, take her own life.
Samaritans is a UK nationwide helpline that can help in times of distress - call 08457 90 90 90 or email jo@samaritans.org if you want to talk about any problems that you are experiencing.
