Many of the friends of Aiden Knight, the Saudi transgender woman who is believed to have committed suicide last week, remember how bright she was and had a keen interest in economics, politics and computer science.
meet sitePink News(Pinknews), a British specialist in LGBT issues, has a number of Saudi female friends, Knight, who lived with her in the United States, where they shared their memories with her during her stay there.
Aidan Knight, 23, committed suicide after being forced to move on from a “joy-filled” person who cared deeply about her community, according to the site.
According to the “Pink News” website, Knight was found dead, on Monday, months after she returned to Saudi Arabia from the United States, where she was studying.
Knight appeared as transgender during the Covid-19 pandemic after moving to the United States to enroll in university, as she was taking female hormones that help her cross.
And she posted on her Twitter account a tweet last month containing two pictures of her, the first was before the Covid-19 pandemic and the other was at the time of publication, as the two pictures show the difference in Knight’s gender identity.
Victoria and Bennett met her for the first time in person at a Georgia Pride event in June. Knight was at a very early stage of her gender transition.
Victoria said Knight was “very confident and generally happy to be ‘female’, saying ‘we laughed and cried and drank together…she was a sister to me'”.
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She added, “One of the things I remember very clearly is that there was a period of time when she came up to me and said, ‘I feel really stupid being here. I think I look like a man.'”
And Victoria adds: “I said to her, ‘Listen, you are really beautiful. You look beautiful.’ Before she gained confidence and then she seemed happy and proud during the following months.”
Earlier in 2022, Eden lived with Bailey Dawes and her family in Georgia in 2022.
Bailey, 27, told Pink News that Knight was a “very open person” and was loved by her family. Bayley added that her young son had a close relationship with Nate.
Knight plans to live with them permanently “once she is granted asylum” in the United States.
The Independent reported that Knight had been living in the United States until late last year.
And Knight published a tweet, on Monday morning, in which she said that she had killed herself after being pressured to return to Saudi Arabia, and preventing her from taking her hormonal medications.
The tweet, which is believed to have been pre-scheduled, spoke of Knight’s use of American “mediators” and a Saudi lawyer in Washington, D.C., to return her to her country, where transients face severe discrimination, according to the British newspaper.
Her friends told Pink News that these brokers claimed they could help her secure permanent immigration status because, at the time, she was an illegal immigrant seeking asylum in the United States.
Bailey Dawes said Knight appeared “enthusiastic and confident” in the texts that these intermediaries would help with her status as an immigrant asylum-seeker.
After speaking to psychics, Knight moved to temporary accommodation in Washington, D.C., where she was allegedly forced out of the transition with the promise of shelter and food.
Feeling pressured and constantly berated, Knight wrote, she returned to Saudi Arabia.
She added that she was subjected to constant searches, and after finding the female hormones she was hiding for the third time, she became “tired” and did not want to continue fighting.
Another friend of Knight, Roseanne, knew her before the Saudi girl started hormone replacement therapy (HRT) with the aim of crossing her gender.
“She was so happy,” Roseanne said. “I had known her for a whole year at that point, and her joy was so palpable when I spoke to her.”
She added that in a perfect world, the people who were involved in the events that led to Knight’s death would be held accountable for the “horrible thing they did”.
“If she was still here and had managed to get out of her situation, she would have done a lot because she was so resilient and so motivated that she would have done amazing things.”
