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Three Lancaster Transgender Teens Died by Suicide Over Past Year — Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents
Content Note: suicide, gender identity, Lancaster
Lancaster LGBTQ communities have experienced deep loss this past year. Three young trans teens died by by suicide over the past year, including two in the past month.
Say Their Names
River Paige Olmsted, age 17, October 16, 2023
Theadora “Thea” Cassidy, age 18, September 22, 2023
Brayden Snyder, age 15, October 25, 2022
Learn Their Stories
I learned about this tragic triad of death through an online article published by the Lancaster online. We are failing our children to death explores the wave of tragic loss in Lancaster County, the deaths of three transgender youth by suicide.
She writes
[They] were made to feel by many in our town as if it would be better without them here. It is hard to be a teenager. It is especially hard to be a teenager who is different from the majority of their peers. How much harder must it be to also have to listen as adults debate your very existence?
She’s writing as a former child in this community who returned to raise her own children…
