The US authorities are investigating the apparent suicide of a transgender Saudi woman, after her family forced her, through American mediators and a Saudi lawyer, to leave the United States and return to the Kingdom.
A spokesperson for the US State Department told:VICE NewsWe have seen these reports and are investigating these allegations.
And Eden’s friends welcomed the investigation, although some expressed fears that it would not reach a conclusion, according to the newspaper, “The Independent”.
On March 12, Aiden Knight, a 23-year-old Saudi transgender woman, posted a post on social media explaining her intention to “suicide by suicide” after her parents repeatedly confiscated her hormone therapy.
In the post, she talked about the circumstances of leaving the United States to her family’s home in Saudi Arabia, according to a report.VICE News “.
“I hope the world becomes better for us, I hope our people grow old, I hope we see our children grow up to fight for us, I hope transgender rights around the world,” Eden wrote.
In the suicide note, she said her parents had hired American “intermediaries” to help bring her back to the “tyrannical kingdom and force her away from the United States,” according to a newspaper report.The Independent” British.
She said the intermediaries introduced her to a Saudi lawyer in Washington, D.C. who slowly made her dependent on him for “food and shelter” while he pressured her to live as a man, leading her to mentally collapse and accede to her family’s demands.
In the post, she described her parents as “strictly conservative Muslims” and said they bullied and scolded her and denied her access to hormonal medication until her spirit was broken.
Shortly after she posted the letter, posts from her family’s Twitter and Telegram accounts reported that she had passed away.
On March 14, the “Arab LGBT Community” account re-shared Eden’s post, and said that the message was written by the Saudi transgender woman moments before her suicide and after she was lured from Washington to return to her family in Saudi Arabia.
According to the “LGBT Arab” account, Eden was forced to leave hormonal medications and live as a man.
What happened?
In the spring of 2022, Aiden, having finished college and looking for paths to stay in the United States, ends up living in Georgia, with a married couple, Bailey and Hayden, who were looking to host and support homeless trans people.
In August, a man called Aiden and offered to help her repair her fractured relationship with her parents, Hayden told VICE News.
Hayden heard the details after Aiden put the phone call on loudspeaker.
That man, according to Eden’s memo and direct messages sent at the time and reviewed by VICE News,” was Michael Bucalico, a government contractor in the Washington area who specializes in “investigations, intelligence, and cyber.”
Hayden and Bailey said that Eden spoke with Pucallico weekly.
In her diary, Eden wrote that these calls “sounded quite harmless and, frankly, helpful”.
Eden eventually moved out of Hayden and Bailey’s home in Georgia in October after Pucallico encouraged her to go to Washington, D.C., according to her diary and several friends.
In her diary, Eden wrote that Boccalico and his partner, Eileen Cole, along with a Saudi lawyer named Badr, met her at the train station and took her to a hotel.
After that, Badr became the only point of contact for the transgender Saudi.
Victoria, a friend of the Saudi transgender woman, says that the Saudi lawyer forced Aiden to wear men’s clothing, pressured her to stop hormone therapy, and Badr bought her a flight back to Saudi Arabia.
In Eden’s memo, she described in detail how she eventually stopped HRT, changed her clothes and succumbed to the pressure of “not converting” after meeting her parents.
“Forced exclusion is torture,” Merrick DeVille, a friend of Aiden’s who has been leading efforts to gather evidence about her case, told reporters and activists.
Eden tried to continue hormone replacement therapy secretly while she was in Saudi Arabia, but her parents found the drugs more than once, according to what the transgender woman mentioned in her letter and what her friends mentioned.
Her parents admitted that “Badr, Boukaleko and Cole” were appointed to bring Aiden back to Saudi Arabia, and also scolded her, describing her as a “freak”.