Early on Dec. 28, 2014, 17-year-old Leelah Alcorn, a teenager struggling with sexuality, died after being hit by a tractor-trailer while walking around route 71 in her Ohio hometown. Alcorn’s onset internal depression, isolation from her own parents and negative reaction to her ‘coming out,’ led to her posting of a suicide note onto her Tumblr social media account.

“I think that it’s lamentable that the parents cannot support the decisions because parents have a huge influence on how their children feel throughout their lives. It results in a disconnect between who the child really is and what they are trying to live up to for their parents,” senior Zoe Redmond said.

Her death was ruled a suicide due to the note, a queued post she had set for the same day, or a day after, which went viral on Tumblr. In the note, Alcorn explained how she never felt like she had fit in, and that ever since she was four years old she didn’t feel comfortable with being a male. When she was fourteen, she revealed herself to her Christian parents as transgender, and they reacted with negativity. She also received therapy from people who only put her down more, telling her that she was wrong with the way she feels, cutting her off from social media and taking her out of school. After a long period of isolation and depression, she realized her parents would never accept her and she would have to wait until she was eighteen to begin any sort of conversion treatment. Alcorn’s emotional post had received a total of 200,000 likes and reblogs by Dec. 31, 2014.

Following her death, mother Carla Alcorn shared a Facebook post saying what a ‘good boy’ he was and identifying her with her birth name “Joshua Alcorn.” Unfortunately, it has been deleted from her account, and her Facebook page is now private.

“I don’t think its right how her parents ignored the fact that she wanted to be transgender. I understand that it is for religious views but its their child and they should have put it aside,” junior Daniella Munoz said.

With Leelah Alcorn’s death, many people have come together and created a petition to make conversion therapy illegal. Currently with 283,875 supporters as of January 5, 2014, click here if you would like to sign it and support Leelah.