Mikki Nicholson
Age 367 Nov 2014
Carlisle, Cumbria (United Kingdom)
Suicide
Mikki died by suicide.
Two weeks ago Mikki Nicholson was hit by a train at Great Corby in Cumbria. It was around 7.30pm on Friday and she could have been sitting down to watch Coronation Street, or meeting friends for dinner – but instead she was on a dark, cold track, dying. Her family released a statement saying she had taken her own life.
Mikki was depressed. Mikki was a Scrabble champion. Mikki was transgender. She had tried to take her own life before but had always been saved by her network of supporters. No one knows what happened this time, though. She went to a lonely place and from there on to the loneliest place of all. I hope she finds the peace in death that evaded her in life.
I’ve added Mikki to the list of people I need to remember today, which is the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) – a ghostly crew of long-gone friends and people I almost met but never did, and never will. Like Andrea Waddell. She lived up the road from me back when I was in Brighton. A student and a sex worker – as was I, back then, although she was a bit older – she was murdered by a client. I met her family at my very first TDOR. They had the look of people who had been robbed of the thing that is most precious to them.
An inquest found that transphobia had contributed to her suicide.
Prior to her death she had to leave her temporary accommodation – despite having been unable to find a new home – and was recorded as “intentionally homeless”.
According to the News and Star, community psychiatric nurse Clive Guyo said: “She described Carlisle as hostile to people who are different.
“She spoke of facing verbal abuse while walking in the streets because of how she appeared to other people.
“Schoolchildren were often the worst for making fun of her and verbally abusing her.
“She had a negative view of Carlisle based on past experience… she felt stigmatised.
Mikki's death was not recorded in the official TGEU TDoR 2015 list.
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/transsexual-scrabble-champion-life-death-town-called-malice-1497831
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/20/celebrate-life-transgender-day-of-remembrance
