Mattilda,

As usual, you take us to the places we don't dare enter. It seems that part of the problem here, as evidenced by Kevin's post above, is that we insist on shutting the door on suicide. Or, rather, that we draw a veil over suicide, an act about which we've already constructed a particular narrative with specific tropes: It is tragic and without meaning, the "victim" (or some such related term) was loved, had much potential, and could not be saved despite the love of all around her. And, of course, no one else can ask questions about the preferred narrative. To do so is to somehow "be flippant" or to "imagine that you know this woman's thoughts and wishes better than her family, friends, and colleagues."

The truth about suicide might simply be that it is the one act that says: You do not know me, and I can not tell you more, except in this act. That does not have to preclude attachment to the ones "left behind." Or perhaps it does. Either way, I think works like this one go a long way in dismantling the edifice we've built around suicide, and the idea that it only belongs, as it were, to a few.

I love your last question: "how do we know that Emma Bee Bernstein didn't kill herself because of her feminism, not in spite of it, and what would it mean to think about this gesture, in all of its sadness and yearning, as something she wanted us to pay attention to, not to cover up like an aberration?"

I can't wait to see where you'll continue taking this, if you do.

First, she did not overdose. Second, it's unethical and just plain tactless to disparage the character of some one who's not even around to defend themselves. An anonymous, hateful personal attack does not belong on a blog about LGBTQ news and issues.