On the 12th of March, 2023, Eden Knight, after a long period of silence, posted a suicide note to twitter.

Eden Knight was born in Saudi Arabia, but lived in America for much of her life. While studying at George Mason University in Virginia on an international scholarship, she came out as a transgender woman and began her transition. Her scholarship ran out before she could graduate, causing her visa to expire, and forcing her out of her dorm.

Instead of going back to an ultra-conservative family who she knew would not accept her, she moved to Georgia to find a job and live on her own. Eden was living undocumented at a friend’s house, supported by a close network of friends, and a low-paying, but livable, job.

Through a friend, Eden eventually came into contact with two people, M and E, who said they were “fixers.” M and E said they could “fix” Eden’s relationship with her family, and she believed they could get her documentation.

Eden talked with M on the phone often. The conversations were friendly, with M mostly asking about Eden’s safety and the like. At a vulnerable time, M and E pushed Eden to move to Washington DC, and Eden met with the two along with a Saudi Arabian lawyer, B.

B helped Eden find an apartment, and paid for most of her food expenses. Eden grew more and more optimistic that she could gain immigration status and that things would work out. However, as Eden continued to live in DC, discussions with B shifted more and more to the topic of detransition.

B would mention offhandedly how many trans women led successful lives in the closet. He pushed Eden to pursue a “double life,” as a man in public, and a woman in private. He often commented that she looked “too masculine” to be a woman. In Eden’s own words: “At every step of the way, he tried to detransition me.”

By the time she realized this, it was too late. B had already sunk into every facet of her livelihood, and M and E had stopped returning Eden’s calls. Eden said “I was entirely dependent on [B] for food, and shelter, and […] if I ran away, he could easily find my location, and since I was illegal, I would have just been deported to Saudi.”

At this point, Eden said, she lost hope. “I did everything he asked, I cut my hair, I stopped taking estrogen, I changed my wardrobe, I met my dad.”

“Then I had another breakdown. My mom kept telling me to repent or I was going to hell, and I did, I repented. I believed I was going to hell so much that I read the entire Quran front to back in a couple of days, crying the entire f—–g time about what a disgusting thing I am, and I didn’t sleep. I repented, and I was broken. [B] then booked a flight back to Saudi, and I came back.”

When Eden returned home she was treated like a criminal, called “a failure and an abomination” by her own family. Her family revealed that M, E, and B were all hired by Eden’s father, Fahad Al-Shathri. The three were contracted by Eden’s family to manipulate Eden, coercing her into returning to Saudi Arabia, and forcing her to detransition.

Then, Eden’s family took away her HRT*. After a month of not taking it, she said, “I didn’t want to live if I couldn’t transition […] They have found my HRT again, and I am done fighting.” That night, she took her life.

Eden’s death is depressing and frightening. Depressing because she is just one in a long string of young women with their whole lives ahead of them, killed by transphobia. Frightening because of how her life was destroyed by her parents, and the further questions her death raises. Frightening because it suggests that anyone with enough money can forcibly detransition and extradite their estranged family members, and because a group of respected immigration professionals tricked Eden, manipulated her, and, ultimately, ended her life.

Eden is mourned by her hundreds of close friends and thousands of followers, all wishing for a different, kinder world.

*HRT is a set of hormonal medications used to assist transitioning. It affects, secondary sex characteristics like body hair, breast and muscle growth, and skin texture