Alabama preacher/mayor kills himself after being outed as ‘transgender curvy girl’
F.L. “Bubba” Copeland was the mayor of Smiths Station, AL. (pop. 6,756) and the pastor at First Baptist Church in nearby Phenix City. On Friday at 5 p.m., in front of sheriff deputies who had been called to do a welfare check, he pulled out a gun and killed himself.
He was distraught after a conservative site, 1819 News, had revealed his secret alter ego — maybe better described as his true self — Brittini Blaire Summerlin. Copeland had described Brittini as a “transitioning transgender curvy girl, that loves smiling, clothes, and shoes!”
It was his clandestine life on social media that had caught the attention of the internet’s yellow journalists. One of his profiles showed Copeland wearing a selection of women’s clothing, including intimate photos of himself in women’s underwear.
In addition to the images of him in women’s clothing, yearning to live honestly, Copeland also posted transgender porn, transgender fiction, and erotica he had written.
Initially, Copeland had appeared to take it in his stride. On Wednesday, the same day 1819 News published his secret, he delivered his scheduled sermon. He told the congregation,
“I have been an object of an internet attack. An article that was written about my capacity as the mayor [and] capacity as a pastor. The article is not who or what I am.”
He added: “Yes, I have taken pictures with my wife in the privacy of our home in an attempt of humor because I know I’m not a handsome man nor a beautiful woman either. I apologize for any embarrassment caused by my private, personal life that has come publicly.”
Copeland had also told 1819 News that his online alter ego was a harmless “hobby” that did not go beyond his home.
“Just my wife knows about it. It’s a hobby I do to relieve stress. I have a lot of stress, and I’m not medically transitioning. It’s just a bit of a character I’m playing. … I don’t go out and seek solicitation or anything like that.”
“What I do in private life has nothing to do with what I do in my holy life. Does this have any effect on me being mayor, that I sometimes put on a dress or sometimes put on makeup? Does that have anything to do whatsoever with me being mayor or being a pastor?”
I suspect that, as much as he wished it did not, Copeland was well aware that his private life had everything to do with him being mayor and being a pastor.
It is reasonable to assume that Smiths Station, a majority-white town in rural Alabama, is a conservative place. It is part of Lee County, which voted for Trump by 20%. And the man himself visited there after a fatal storm in 2019. It would take wilful blindness to imagine the social repercussions would not be harsh and definitive.
And despite his brave words, Copeland was not blind. And thus, he learned how many Americans who live in judgmentally sanctimonious communities feel. For many, including Copeland, it is too heavy a cross to bear.
In a prescient moment straight out of a Greek tragedy, Copeland foresaw his fate. In a March interview with Columbus, Georgia’s WRBL (Smiths Station is part of Columbus’s metropolitan area), he said,
“I always say, ‘We’re Mayberry 2023.’ It really is like everybody knows your name. You know, everybody dies famous in a small town. That’s what it is. It is Friday Night Lights. It is Mama’s apple pie. Our community is very, very low crime, very low drug abuse. Our number one problem is suicide. It is sad. I think a lot of it has to do with the military. I think some of it has to do with social media and the reality of that. That’s the number one problem we have.”
What Copeland did not say is that living in a small conservative Christian town is to suffer the yoke of moral tyranny. Should you be conformist enough to bear the traces of expectation, you are a lucky person. Coloring outside the lines is a shunning offense.
If the good Baptists of Smiths Station (seven of the small community’s 14 churches are of that denomination) or the Christians of Phenix City (pop. 38,817 — 96 churches) are capable of self-reflection, they would do well to consider how Jesus would have reacted to Copeland’s true self. They will not — as they do not get their philosophy from Christ. Their preference is for the dogma formulated by opportunistic snake-oil sellers, lusting to impose their compassion-free bigotry on any who does not live the orthodoxy.
It is why so many Americans suffer mental anguish simply for being who they are. And for many of them, who they are was how their God made them. Despite the sadistic denial of religious bullies.