A public outing, a mayor’s suicide, and the toll of anti-trans hate in a small Southern city
While there’s no evidence that he ever publicly denigrated the LGBTQ community, he was a Republican in a deeply conservative state.
In his last sermon to his congregation, Fred L. “Bubba” Copeland, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Phenix City, Ala., said he had been “the object of an internet attack in an article.” Published by a conservative blog, that article alleged that Copeland had social media accounts under a pseudonym that showed him in women’s clothing, wigs, and makeup.
“I apologize for any embarrassment caused by my private and personal life that has [become public],” Copeland, who was also the mayor of Smiths Station, a small city in Alabama, told his congregants on Nov. 1. “This will not cause my life to change, this will not waver my devotion to my family, to serving my city, and serving my church.”
Two days later, Copeland, a married father of three, died by suicide. He was 49.
Copeland never publicly identified as transgender but may have been exploring his gender identity and expression. He did not deserve to be publicly mocked, his very personal journey weaponized against him by a right-wing hate machine that’s made Alabama one of the nation’s most hostile states for LGBTQ people, especially the trans community.
In a Facebook post, Larry DiChiara, a former school superintendent in Phenix City, shared his grief over Copeland’s death — and his anger at those who disparaged his longtime friend.
“I just want to ask you people who thought it humorous to publicly ridicule him. ‘Are you happy now?’ ” DiChiara wrote.
“What crime did he commit? Some of you people make me sick. I hope you are really proud. For our brother, F.L. Bubba Copeland, May God bless your soul and forgive those who took pleasure in your suffering. They should all be ashamed!”
On X, Doug Jones, a former US senator from Alabama, said it was “sad and disgusting” how Copeland was treated during the last days of his life. “We live in a mean, bitter world where the self righteous tend to throw the largest stones and 1819 News [the conservative blog that outed Copeland] is the perfect example,” Jones said.
To be clear, Copeland was attacked by his own. While there’s no evidence that he ever publicly denigrated the LGBTQ community, he was a Republican in a deeply conservative state. In April 2022, the same month that Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed into law a bill barring schoolchildren from using bathrooms consistent with their gender identity, Copeland endorsed Ivey’s reelection. In campaign literature during his own reelection bid in 2020, Copeland used a photo of himself with Donald Trump when the then-president visited Alabama after a series of deadly tornadoes in 2019.
Copeland never openly criticized his state’s Republican-led legislative assault on trans rights such as making it a felony for doctors to give people under age 19 gender-affirming care and passing Alabama’s own version of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, which forbids classroom discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity with students in the fifth grade and under. Alabama also prohibits trans athletes at public colleges and universities from competing on teams that align with their gender identity.
Debating whether it was hypocritical for Copeland to support anti-LGBTQ politicians while he reportedly may have lived a different life on what he thought was the anonymity of the internet is a distraction. It was wrong to out him, full stop. And one need only look at the derision Copeland endured after he was exposed by the blog’s publication to understand why he might have felt as if he needed to keep his secrets close. That’s the greater horror here.
“We condemn, in the strongest terms, the use of discriminatory and hateful rhetoric to target the personal lives of individuals — be they public or private citizens,” said Jamie Lowe, Democratic party chairperson of Alabama’s Lee County. “The practice of demonizing [people] because of personal life choices must end because it has very real and life-altering consequences.”
What was done to Copeland in the days between his outing and his death is a warning for LGBTQ people, and trans people in particular, to bolt tight their closet doors or risk the same fate. What hateful societies want — and what they must always be denied — is the selferasure that appeases bigots who want to dictate how others should live even when it’s contrary to who those people are meant to be.
In Copeland’s final sermon he said, “I have nothing to be ashamed of.” Had he lived in a state that reinforced that belief instead of excoriating him during what he described to friends as “dark days,” Copeland might still be here serving that state and, at last, living his truth.