Online vitriol poured in after the death of a Portland-area trans teen. Then came a deluge of support, grief and love

As a very online teenager in a very online world,

Charlotte Fosgate

was well-known by her social media handles — @burntfishie if you were one of her 18,000 Twitter followers or Charcoal if you were part of the Sonic the Hedgehog enthusiast community.

To her family, though, she was just Charlotte, or sometimes still the name she’d been born with and was still patiently willing to answer to when it was just close family, said her aunt, Katherine Ethridge, a special education teacher on the Oregon Coast.

And now, after the 17-year-old’s body was found floating in the Willamette River nine days after she went missing from her home near Milwaukie, her name is being spoken and shared online as a symbol by hordes of people who never knew her.

The online attention began with comments left by the thousands on her final tweets. The haters misgendered her and were ghoulishly gleeful at her death.

But that quickly sparked a tidal wave of posts, comments and videos on X, Reddit and TikTok, many from LGBTQ+ teens and their allies, shared in support of Fosgate’s legacy and against the vitriol that had threatened to overwhelm her final online moments.

Not long after she slipped away from her mother’s house on May 2, taking only her bus pass and her phone, Fosgate posted a picture on X from the top of the St. Johns Bridge at 1:39 a.m., the city’s lights in the distance, the Willamette inky black below, with a four-word caption: “its a pretty view.”

Law enforcement officials determined she died by suicide.

Ethridge told The Oregonian/OregonLive that when her niece’s death first started attracting national attention, she tried to reply to the virulently anti-trans comments on her niece’s last tweets. But Ethridge did not dwell in the comments for long.

“I chose not to respond anymore after someone told me that it should have been me that died instead of her,” Ethridge said.

Other people stepped in, trying to fill the online spaces with grief and honor.

Reddit user @UnPluggdToastr posted: “I hope her soul is at rest and her future existence is more kind to her than the one she had on earth … I have never met Charlotte, but I can safely say you will be missed.”

A GoFundMe donor posted that she never knew Fosgate, but, as another transgender girl in greater Portland, she can’t stop grieving for her.

“Learning about Charlotte’s disappearance a few days ago — and subsequent discovery — has destroyed me,” she wrote. “I’m so hurt by her death because it resonates so deeply.”

And on TikTok and Instagram, Penelope Wickman, a Portland resident, has posted about Fosgate’s story and the dangers of transphobia for weeks. Wickman’s partner is transgender, which has partially fueled her fight to support Fosgate’s legacy, Wickman told The Oregonian/OregonLive.

“Charlotte being a minor, a child, a teen was still not enough for people to lay off and just be like ‘This is really sad,’” Wickman said. “We don’t really understand how much danger nonbinary and trans youth face.”

Charlotte’s family members have read the heartfelt comments that have poured in from around the country, Ethridge said.

“It is really heart-warming. It makes me want to fight more for them. I would never want anyone to feel uncomfortable or like they don’t belong in this world because they are trans,” Ethridge said. “It has become a new mission for me and my sister, to help them as much as we can.”

Born in Kansas City, Charlotte moved to the Oak Grove neighborhood with her mother when she was little. Pictures from a Pacific Northwest childhood show family clamming and swimming trips to Vashon Island, pumpkin patch visits on Sauvie Island and lots of time spent loving on a beloved rescue dog of indeterminate breed, Marley.

Like plenty of other kids her age, Charlotte loved gaming, from Angry Birds to Super Mario Bros., and always, especially, Sonic the Hedgehog, the video game series that traces the adventures of a blue hedgehog perennially locked in combat with evil scientists and the robot armies they command.

She talked about a job in the computer industry, thinking about a future post-high school.

Her niece did struggle with her mental health, Ethridge said, which the family believes is a primary reason she died by suicide, not the fact that she was transgender.

Though she’d faced bullying at Rex Putnam High School and wound up transferring to the North Clackamas School District’s virtual school,

New Urban Online

, Charlotte was out to her mother, to her friends and to her cousins, Ethridge said, if not formally to some of the older generations of her family members.

“She never came out to me personally. She never came out to most of the family,” Ethridge said. “But we knew. We loved and accepted her … We just wanted her to be OK.”

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, help is available. Call or text 988 for 24-hour, confidential support, or visit 988lifeline.org.

Help available

• 
  Suicide and crisis lifeline: 988
  
• 
  Alcohol and drug hotline: 800-923-4357
  
• 
  Teen-to-teen crisis and help: 877-968-8491, or text teen2teen to 839863
  
• 
  The Trevor Project provides help for LGBTQ+ young people: 866-488-7386 or text START to 678-678
  

• 
  Suicide and crisis lifeline: 988
  
• 
  Alcohol and drug hotline: 800-923-4357
  
• 
  Teen-to-teen crisis and help: 877-968-8491, or text teen2teen to 839863
  
• 
  The Trevor Project provides help for LGBTQ+ young people: 866-488-7386 or text START to 678-678
  

— Eddy Binford-Ross covers education and local politics for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Reach her at


ebinford-ross@oregonian.com


.

— Julia Silverman covers K-12 education for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Reach her at


jsilverman@oregonian.com

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