Suicide of Lia Smith

Lia Purcell Smith (March 7, 2004 – October 18, 2025) was an American student at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont, who died by suicide on October 18, 2025, at the age of 21. She was reported missing by her father on October 19, 2025, and her body was found by the Vermont State Police near Middlebury College's organic farm in Cornwall, Vermont, on October 24, 2025. Smith, who was a transgender woman, was a member of the Middlebury Panthers women's swimming and diving team and experienced backlash, doxing, and deadnaming from critics of transgender women athletes.

Background Smith was born on March 7, 2004, in Berkeley, California, to Gregory C. Smith and Keith E. Purcell, growing up in Woodside, California, and graduating from Sacred Heart Preparatory, a private Catholic school in Atherton. She volunteered as a teaching assistant at Peninsula Bridge, where she was awarded the Bronze Presidential Volunteer Service Award in 2022. She was a member of the college's chess, bridge, LGBTQ+, and Japanese clubs. She was one of her team's top performers, placing fifth overall off the 3-meter board during her rookie debut. She stopped competing after her freshman year, citing difficulties as a transgender student athlete, but continued to train with the team from time to time thereafter. The site reported Smith's diving history while revealing Smith's birth name. The backlash and online harassment Smith and Middlebury received from critics of transgender athletes led the college to remove Smith's biography from its athletics website.

Following President Donald Trump's January 2025 issuance of various executive orders restricting transgender rights, Smith spoke at a protest forum titled Trans Healthcare is NOT a Debate! in February 2025, stating that it was "really hard going in a locker room where you're not welcome, and there's really not a clear space that I should be going to" and that "we're [transgender people] not trying to get into women's spaces to be perverts.. we're just being ourselves. We don't mean any harm to anyone". She spoke up about having to undergo quarterly hormone checks to be able to compete. On October 23, 2025, an unidentified body was found in Cornwall, Vermont near The Knoll, Middlebury College's organic farm. Vermont State Police identified the body as Smith's on October 24, 2025. The Vermont Chief Medical Examiner's Offices determined the death was a suicide.

Aftermath and reactions Middlebury College president Ian Baucom released a statement following Smith's death, referring to her as "an articulate advocate of transgender rights". He offered condolences to the family and called Smith's death "a profound loss". Opinion-editorial articles were published by the transgender rights activist journalists Katelyn Burns and Erin Reed that blamed anti-transgender policies for Smith's death.

Memorial services for Smith took place on November 2, 2025, at the Harman Assembly Hall at Sacred Heart Preparatory in Atherton, California, and on November 10, 2025, at the Wilson Hall on the Middlebury Campus in Vermont.