The Christian mother of a transgendered teen who committed suicide has spoken of her sorrow over her child's death in a recent interview.
Carla Alcorn used male pronouns and referred to Leelah as her son as she explained her stance on the 17-year-old's sexuality.
"We don't support that, religiously," Carla said in an interview with CNN published Wednesday. "But we told him that we loved him unconditionally.
"We loved him no matter what. I loved my son. People need to know that I loved him. He was a good kid, a good boy."
Leelah, born Joshua Ryan Alcorn, walked in front of a tractor trailer in Warren County, Ohio on December 28. She scheduled a suicide note to be posted on Tumblr after her death.
The teen detailed her desire to transition to a female on her "Satan's Wifey" blog, and the opposition she received from her family.
"When I was 14, I learned what transgender meant and cried tears of happiness," she wrote. "After 10 years of confusion I finally understood who I was.
"I immediately told my mum, and she reacted extremely negatively, telling me that it was a phase, that I would never truly be a girl, that God doesn't make mistakes, that I am wrong," Leelah continued.
"If you are reading this, parents, please don't tell this to your kids. Even if you are Christian or are against transgender people don't ever say that to someone, especially your kid.
"That won't do anything but make them hate them self. That's exactly what it did to me."
Leelah said her family took her to Christian therapists, pulled her out of school, and kept her off social media. When they refused to allow her to start transitioning at the age of 16, Leelah felt hopeless.
"Either I live the rest of my life as a lonely man who wishes he were a woman or I live my life as a lonelier woman who hates herself," she lamented.
"People say 'it gets better' but that isn't true in my case. It gets worse. Each day I get worse."
Carla said that she never heard her child use the name "Leelah," and that the teen only approached her one time about being transgender. She recalled a conversation about transition surgery, and admitting saying no.
"We didn't have the money for anything like that," Carla explained. She said social media users were depicting her and her husband as "horrible people," and insisted that she loved her child.
"He was an amazing musician and artist," she said. "He was an amazing boy."
