On April 29, 2024, James Lantz drove from Vermont to the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg. When he got there, he walked to the gallery of the Senate hall and glued his hand to the railing, waiting for state Senate Majority Whip Ryan Aument (R) to arrive.When Lantz saw Sen. Aument, he confronted him: You are culpable for the deaths of five trans children! Wearing a white sweatshirt with a trans flag and large black words that read: ASK WHY 5 DIED.com, Lantz was arrested fifteen minutes later by the Pennsylvania state capitol police, held in jail for roughly 12 hours, and eventually charged with a felony and two misdemeanors. Related 40% of LGBTQ+ youth have considered suicide, new CDC study finds Queer youth were also more likely to abuse substances and miss school due to bullying. Lantz told LGBTQ Nation that Aument didnt say anything in response, just looked a little freaked out that somebody from the gallery was yelling at him specifically, and, you know, calling him out. Stay connected to your community Connect with the issues and events that impact your community at home and beyond by subscribing to our newsletter. Subscribe to our Newsletter today Lantz went to the Pennsylvania State Capitol that day because five trans children have died by suicide in the past 18 months alone, all in Sen. Auments district. During this time, like most Republican politicians across the country, Aument proposed and passed stringent anti-LGBTQ+ bills targeting trans youth. Trans people the five dead trans children here were made collateral damage of the rights harmful political rhetoric.Lantz, a filmmaker in Vermont, found out about the suicides when he was doing research for a project focusing on LGBTQ+ suicides. He shifted his project to make a documentary series about the trans suicides in Lancaster on his website, www.angrygaygrandpa.com.Part of the reason Lantz felt it was important to make such a strong show of activism is because of his own identity. Lantz came out as a gay man two years ago at age 60.I came out after 30-plus years of marriage and six decades on this planet, so I feel like Ive got a lot of time to make up for it in terms of being AWOL for any kind of gay rights movement that was happening when I was a teen, when I was in my 20s, Lantz explained.James Lantz in the shirt he was arrested in while protesting Sen. Ryan Aument | Provided Another driving factor behind the urgency of his protest is his own health. Lantz has stage four cancer. He carried a doctors note warning that his bones are brittle and more at risk of breaking in case the capitol guards wanted to rough him up.When you have stage four cancer, your decision-making is very different. I dont have time to waste.Its just 100% unacceptable. These were beautiful kids who didnt have to die by suicide, Lantz said. I wanted to elevate the story. The trans teen suicide crisis in Lancaster CountyLancaster County, Pennsylvania, has a population of 552,984 and is a Republican stronghold, with 58% of residents voting Republican in this years presidential election. Its gone red for every presidential election since 1964, and the vast majority of elected offices are held by Republicans. It is also a fairly Christian area, with pockets of both Mennonite and Amish communities, and 47.2% of the population identifying Christian.The first suicide was Robyn Bittenbender, who died by suicide at the age of 12 on September 10, 2022. Brayden Snyder, age 15, October 25, 2022. Theadora Thea Cassidy, age 18, on September 22, 2023, then three weeks later, River Paige Olmsted, age 17, on October 16, 2023.When you have trans voices themselves, telling politicians, Your policies are exacerbating my psychological stress, my feeling of social dislocation and isolation, those politicians, all they want, can say, Well, no, they dont. You have to listen to the voices who are actually being affected by them.Mark ClatterbuckThe most recent death was this year, on February 27. Ash Clatterbuck, age 22.I am a transgender man. I, too, feel the pain, the deep ache of anxiety, the cracking pressure in my chest as the weight of the world closes in. The lost grip. The feeling of helplessness, he wrote in December of 2022, shortly after the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs, Colorado.His close friend, president of Lancaster Pride Evan Rowell, said of Ash, His infectious laughter and smile lit up even the darkest of rooms. Its tough for me to think of him as anything other than my friend. He was genuinely one of the kindest and most compassionate people Ive ever met, and I feel his absence every single day. Ash was the first openly trans kid at the Mennonite high school he attended. His father, Mark Clatterbuck, said, It was a real process of educating administration and teachers about trans rights, the necessity and importance of using proper pronouns, calling him by his, his, his name. For Ash, it was a really mixed experience, mostly negative.Ash transferred his senior year of high school to a secular school that was affirming of trans youth. He was involved in Lancaster Pride and in social justice movements advocating for environmental rights and gun control. He attended Montclair State University in New Jersey, where he was a junior majoring in political science and journalism at the time of his death.Mark Clatterbuck, when asked if he believes that Republican politicians who use anti-trans rhetoric, such as Sen. Aument, played a role in the death of Ash and other trans youth, he responded, I have no doubt. He pointed to his son writing in an op-ed to his local paper that it is unwise dangerous, even to pretend that the rhetoric spewed by public figures does not play a role in these occurrences after the Club Q shooting.When you have trans voices themselves, telling politicians, Your policies are exacerbating my psychological stress, my feeling of social dislocation and isolation, those politicians, all they want, can say, Well, no, they dont. You have to listen to the voices who are actually being affected by them, Clatterbuck said.I believe those voices. I believe my son when he wrote that.Ash Clatterbuck speaking at a rally | Family photo Research on anti-trans rhetoric lends support to the youths voices. A study recently published in Nature Human Behavior found that enacting anti-trans laws like gender-affirming care bans and sports bans lead to a 72% increase in suicide attempts among transgender individuals in those states over states that did not pass such legislation. In general, 81% of transgender adults have considered suicide at some point in their lifetime.Now a majority of states ban gender-affirming care for transgender minors. This means that Lancaster County, with its five young people dead in two years, is likely to repeat itself elsewhere. Perhaps the only thing that will make Lancaster County different is that so many suicides happened in such quick succession, attracting attention on social media. State Republican leaders dont want to talk about thisThe Clatterbucks have not received any outreach from their political representatives about their sons death, though Mark Clatterbuck has reached out multiple times to several elected officials, including Sen. Aument.Our political leaders must come together and not only refrain from subversive language, but actively discourage and condemn it.Ash ClatterbuckHe even contacted a neighbor who is also a Republican state senator, Scott Martin, and wrote a really vulnerable, personal, not political, letter asking to have a conversation together as neighbors, just to talk about Ashs experience and about the very, very real and human toll that the policies you supporthave on kids like our son.Clatterbuck said that Sen. Martin hasnt even acknowledged the letter.Likewise, after Lantzs arrest, Aument said that no one from the Lancaster County, community had ever asked to speak with him about the issue of trans youth. Clatterbuck called Auments office to talk about the death of his son and said he was told to go to meet with Martin, his neighbor who had ignored his letter.Sen. Ryan Aument | Screenshot I thought that as neighbors, as a parent, as people who claim to be people of faith, as you think, decent human beings, we can at least sit down after the death of our son we could sit down and at least just talk, Clatterbuck said, just to ask why are you doing this? Whats driving this? Would you reconsider your beliefs?As the responses of elected officials show, the deaths of trans children in Lancaster County have not led to a sudden change in rhetoric. Pennsylvania Republicans are still trying to pass legislation aimed at marginalizing trans children in schools. The ACLU is tracking five anti-LGBTQ+ bills in Pennsylvania this year. One bill, H.B. 2421, which would ban gender-affirming care for trans youth, has been referred to a committee. Another, H.B. 216, would ban trans girls from participating in sports.The Independence Law Center, a conservative legal organization affiliated with the Pennsylvania Family Institute, recently won a contract to develop athletic, student records, and parental rights policies at the Penn Manor School District in Lancaster County. The Southern Poverty Law Center designates the Pennsylvania Family Institute as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group. Rowell of Lancaster Pride said that this will have a deeply harmful impact on trans kids.When trans kids are the targets of discriminatory laws or school board policies, they hear a message that they are less than their cisgender peers. This can have a profound effect on their mental health, Rowell said.The Pennsylvania Family Institute, whose lawyers are behind the contracts, state that they believe that Family starts with a healthy marriage between one man and one woman and trans women competing in sports is not only bad for girls who identify as girls, it is also bad for girls who identify as boysthe only people who win are males who get to steal opportunities from women. The idea that transgender girls are really just boys pretending to be girls in order to win in school sports is a transphobic stereotype. Warwick School District, another school district in Lancaster County, lost their superintendent of 15 years after signing with Independence Law Center in May. In an interview with LancasterOnline, the former superintendent, April Hershey, said, I didnt feel like I could live up to my own personal beliefs in that position any longer after she recommended against hiring a religious a law firm to shape curriculum.Mark Clatterbuck sees conservative Christians as one the largest drivers of anti-trans rhetoric. He said that he believes that they see themselves as in the trenches of a cosmic war. And its not just life or death right for them, its like the feet of Gods kingdom and I do think that helps explain this anti-trans discrimination.Clatterbuck said that its the only way I can ever make sense of what appears to just be the base cruelty of these elected leaders. His son agreed. In a Medium post from November 24, 2022, Ash wrote: Repeated rhetoric proclaiming that the United States is a Christian nation, founded on Christian principles, and meant to uphold Christian values is a dangerous threat to individual freedom and the entire democratic system upon which this country was founded. Our political leaders must come together and not only refrain from subversive language, but actively discourage and condemn it.Editors note: This article mentions suicide. If you need to talk to someone now, call the Trans Lifeline at1-877-565-8860. Its staffed by trans people, for trans people. The Trevor Project provides a safe, judgement-free place to talk for LGBTQ+ youth at1-866-488-7386. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at1-800-273-8255.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.