Henry Berg-Brousseau Death, Obituary – Henry Berg-Brousseau has sadly passed away unexpectedly with loved ones, family and the entire community left heartbroken and in grievance, according to an online publication. Henry Berg-Brousseau, a trans rights activist who battled to resist anti-transgender legislation in his native state of Kentucky before going on to work with the Human Rights Campaign, passed away on Friday at the age of 24. Berg-work Brousseau’s included volunteering for the Human Rights Campaign.
According to his mother, who is a state senator for the Democratic Party in Kentucky, Berg-Brousseau took his own life. Berg added in a statement that was shared on Twitter by Bluegrass Politics that her son had spent his whole life “trying to give grace, compassion, and understanding to everyone, but especially to the weak and disenfranchised.” Berg’s message was shared by Bluegrass Politics. As a transgender guy, she said, “this grace, compassion, and understanding was not always reciprocated to him.”
Because of who Berg-Brousseau was, the state senator called out the politicians who were trying to aggressively marginalize her son because of who Berg-Brousseau was. Berg-Brousseau had struggled with mental illness, according to Berg, “not because he was trans but born from his problems seeking acceptance.” According to the obituary, he was born in Louisville in the state of Kentucky. “While he was a student at Louisville Collegiate School, he worked for the rights of transgender people by organizing a demonstration against homosexual conversion therapy, speaking to the Kentucky Senate Education Committee, and participating in other issues in the local, state, and national communities.
It was stated that his speech to the committee had been broadcast on John Oliver Tonight. After that, Berg-Brousseau continued his education at George Washington University, where he earned degrees in both political science and history while also pursuing a minor in Jewish Studies. Berg stated that her son’s involvement with the Human Rights Campaign had made him painfully aware of the growing tide of hateful language aimed at transgender persons in the country. She added that her son had witnessed this hatred directed at his employment personally. She stated that in one of the last talks she would have with her son, he expressed concern to her about whether or not he would be safe going out.
She added that this conversation would be one of the last ones she would have with him. Berg noted that “the hostility that is being directed towards trans persons is not occurring in a vacuum.” “It is not only a means of collecting political points by inflaming the cultural wars,” as the author of the article states. It has real-world repercussions for how transgender persons understand their place in the world and how they are treated as they just attempt to live their lives.