On the day she died, Mindy was staying at The Towers apartment building with a female friend she’d just met. She’d given up her foster home setting, opting instead to couch surf or seek housing on Facebook. Her situation was not uncommon.

As many as 40 percent of the youth who are homeless identify as LGBT, and many of those are either transgender or gender non-conforming, said Tim Michael, a GSAFE staff member. Lots of factors are in play, he said. Some youth have no choice — they’ve been kicked out of their homes — while others may be engaging in high-risk behavior as a reaction to the societal stigma and rejection they face, he said.

Mindy left no known suicide note. Among her many diagnoses over the years was histrionic personality disorder, characterized by a pattern of attention-seeking behavior and extreme emotionality. She was bright and bubbly but also reactive and impulsive, her mother said.

“I think the second her last foot left the rooftop, she regretted it,” Andrea Fabian said.

Mindy had not yet undergone sex reassignment surgery. The Fabians believe the stigma and social rejection their daughter sometimes faced contributed to her suicide, but they said they likely will never know to what degree.