The Passing of Felicia Faye Clark

By Jennifer Leigh Crandall

Yesterday, a friend phoned to tell us that a mutual friend committed suicide the night before. Felicia was a transsexual woman whose family rejected her. All her friends thought she was getting her life together and for the first time in years she was actually making plans for the future. It all seemed to come apart for her when her mother invited the entire family for a big get together at Easter dinner. Everyone except Felicia was invited.

It all seems so cruel. This was the gentlest person you could hope to meet. She took great delight in the simplest things in life. An invitation out for coffee and silly conversation was enough to bring that thousand watt smile to her face.

On Easter Sunday Felicia was refused access to her eight year old daughter and told she was not welcome at the family gathering. She drove to a remote cabin and set herself on fire. Her father found her the next day.

No one really fully understands the depths of a persons need to be loved by their family. It is twice as important to a transsexual. They need to know that some piece of themselves was seen before they came out, and was loved. To be told that everything you are and everything you represent is completely evil and unacceptable is more than many folk can bear. It was more than Felicia could bear. In a last act of defiance, Felicia violently destroyed the body she was trapped in.

My biggest regret was that I didn't get the chance to know her better. She was truly a gentle soul. Each time I remember her I will remember the smile on her face the first time twenty or more of us all descended on a coffee shop and spent the evening just laughing and being silly. She didn't say too much, she just sat in the middle of all the hubbub and beamed with delight. I will miss my friend. On Friday they will hold a quiet funeral for the family and swiftly bury their troublesome son. Fred Clark will be buried and marked with a headstone. Felicia's final resting place will never bear a single sign of the beautiful woman who touched our lives.

Please don't think this is a letter crying out for sympathy, I just wanted to tell her story to as many folk as I can in hope that her passing will be marked. Each time I think of her I see her big smile and it warms my heart. I am richer for having known her and I am glad of that. As I said this is not a call for sympathy, merely a call for greater understanding between people and a plea for all of us to suspend all judgement when we are presented with something we have never seen before.