LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) – A Kentucky state senator mentioned Tuesday that her transgender son, a trans rights advocate on whom “a scarcity of acceptance took a toll,” has died by suicide. He was 24.
Democratic Sen. Karen Berg mentioned her son Henry Berg-Brousseau “lengthy struggled with psychological sickness, not as a result of he was trans however born from his issue discovering acceptance.” She mentioned he died on Friday.
The Louisville lawmaker mentioned her son had simply acquired a giant promotion working for the Human Rights Marketing campaign, which advocates for LGBTQ rights. He had lastly discovered a group, she mentioned, “however that would not undo the brokenness that he already felt.”
Berg has talked about her son throughout legislative proceedings as she opposed Kentucky payments that take intention at transgender folks, which have more and more handed in Republican statehouses throughout the nation. That features a 2022 legislation that bars transgender women and girls from collaborating in class sports activities matching their gender identification from sixth grade via school.
“Each day at his job Henry would concentrate on the hateful and vile anti-trans messaging being circulated round this nation and targeted at his office,” Berg mentioned in a information launch. “This hate constructing throughout the nation weighed on him. In one in every of our final conversations he puzzled if he was protected strolling down the road.”
Berg mentioned her son spent his life “working to increase grace, compassion and understanding to everybody.” She mentioned the “vitriol towards trans folks” has ”real-world implications for the way transgender folks view their place on the planet and the way they’re handled as they only attempt to stay their lives.”
“If I’ve one ask, it might be this: observe tolerance and style,” Berg mentioned. “Work on loving your neighbor.”
Berg is a doctor and professor from Louisville who was first elected to the state Senate in 2020.
