Here's Why (02/17/2025)
Read or listen to this newsletter (with additional commentary)
Non-Binary Veteran Dies By Suicide, here’s why …
A non-binary veteran named Elisa Rae Shupe, an army veteran who is well known for winning a landmark court case regarding gender neutral markers on federal documents, was found hanging from the top of the Syracuse VA Medical Center parking garage in an apparent suicide on Jan. 27, 2025.
Elisa, who used she/her pronouns according to a blog post from 2021, left a suicide note behind. She emailed it, hoping the media would tell her story. It received almost no coverage. The military website that reported her death doesn’t even mention her name. In her suicide note, Elisa said that her death was not a surrender but a desire to remove herself from the systems that Donald Trump and the MAGA movement are creating to harm her and other trans/gender diverse people.
A witness who discovered the body spoke to local media outlets about what she saw. She described the trans flag Elisa draped herself with and how it covered her face as it blew in the wind.
Trans Men Deserve Love & Attention Too, here’s why …
Sam Nordquist, 24, from Minnesota was reported missing by his family several weeks ago. He traveled to Upstate New York in September to meet a woman he met online who he thought loved him. Sam was only supposed to stay for a week but he never returned home.
Sam had been staying at Patty’s Motel in Hopewell, Ontario County before his body was found in a field near Finger Lakes in Upstate New York. According to investigators, Sam was subjected to relentless torture for at least a month which caused his death. Capt. Kelly Swift of the State Police’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation called this the most ‘horrific crime’ she’s ever investigated.
On February 13th, police conducted a search of the motel where Sam had been staying. They arrested five people and charged them with second-degree murder. They were identified as: Sam’s girlfriend Precious Arzuaga, 38 of Geneva, N.Y.; Jennifer A. Quijano, 30, also of Geneva; Kyle Sage, 33 of Hopewell, N.Y.; Patrick A. Goodwin, 30, of Rochester, N.Y.; and Emily Motyka, 19, also of Rochester.
Police have not yet ruled this a hate crime but say it has not yet been ruled out. Investigators also say more arrests might be made soon.
Sam’s mother described him as loving and generous. ‘He would give you the shirt off his back,’ she said.
Tonight on my YouTube channel I went live with a group of Trans mass folks and trans men to talk about what we need to do to better support them, check it out: click to watch
