A married Alabama preacher and Mayor k!lled himself on Friday, Nov. 3, two days after being outed as a transgender who had a secret life he shared online as a “transgender curvy girl.”
F.L. “Bubba” Copeland, who was the mayor of tiny Smiths Station as well as the pastor at First Baptist Church in nearby Phenix City, shot himself around 5 p.m. in front of sheriffs who were following him.
Copeland was a married father of three.
His suicide came after police were asked to do a welfare check and began tailing his car.
“He exited the vehicle, produced a handgun, and took his own life,” the sheriff’s office said.
Alabama mayor and pastor commits su!cide after being outed as transgender
Copeland’s suicide comes after he was exposed in 1819 News, a news site once owned by the conservative think tank, the Alabama Policy Institute, that described Copeland’s secret life online as a transgender woman under the pseudonym Brittini Blaire Summerlin.
“Brittini” described herself as a “transitioning transgender curvy girl that loves smiling, clothes, and shoes!”
Alabama mayor and pastor commits su!cide after being outed as transgender
One of Brittini’s social media profiles showed Copeland wearing different women’s outfits, including bedroom photos of himself in women’s underwear.
1819 News also reported that Copeland could be seen wearing some of his wife’s clothes in his posts.
Copeland referred to himself as a “thick transgender woman” and encouraged other trans women to go on hormone replacement therapy.
He also posted transgender porn as well as transgender fiction and erotica that he apparently wrote, according to 1819 News.
The report was published on Copeland’s 62nd birthday.
Reacting to the expose, Copeland told 1819 News that his online alter ego was a harmless “hobby” that did not go beyond his home.
Alabama mayor and pastor commits su!cide after being outed as transgender
“Just my wife knows about it,” Copeland said. “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,” Copeland told 1819 reporter Craig Monger. “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?”
