Consolidated Leelah Alcorn thread

[Miss_Bungle1991]

I can't really wrap my brain around the idea of "maybe my death will make things change". You're dead, that's it. I can see how others may think that. But, I just couldn't take things to such an extreme. As far as society goes: I tend to look at all of the people that just want to make trouble for everyone else (no matter who they may be) and give them the double fist, one finger salute. Some people won't accept change no matter what you do. Those people can get stuffed.

[cindy16]

I had read this earlier today, and I felt such a numbness that I didn't know what to say.
It's sad but not surprising at all.
Hopefully one day all these dogmas will be thrown away, but until then, we have to keep fighting...

[LadyStaci]

Leelah will be remembered and missed! RIP My heart is so deeply touched by her story. I was in same place at her age of 17. Taking a bunch of pills because the world in the 90's, friends, an armed forces father, and doctors not trained in gender ways " It is wrong to be a woman in your body because your born a boy!" If had not been for the love of a friend who understood and God I would of not upchucked those pills back then,and I would have never got to meet my understanding and loving wife and family that has accepted me and allowed me to be the woman I am inside. I wish I could of told Leelah that. God dose not make mistakes. He makes all kinds of people and yes trans people too!!

[bxcellent2eo]

From my Twitter:

RT: @CNN Transgender teen: "My death needs to mean something."  http://cnn.it/14frJ6D  #LeelahAlcorn

I totally related to #LeelahAlcorn. I hope people start to understand what it's like. #TransLivesMatter #Transgender

This was her #SwanSong. http://lazerprincess.tumblr.com/post/106447705738/suicide-note ... #TransLivesMatter #LeelahAlcorn

Reading through some of the CNN article, I felt Leelah was writing my biography. It mirrored my life so much. This treatment of trans people isn't healthy. I have considered suicide in the past, partly because of no outlet and support for being transgender. Hopefully, Like Leelah's death won't be in vain.

[ImagineKate]

While Leelah's life doesn't mirror mine, I did try to commit suicide multiple times as a teenager. My dad even called the cops once.

I wrote about this in my coming out letter, to which he is yet to respond to.

Her life does need to be an example. But I wouldn't lay the blame solely on religion. Rather, parents need to stop projecting themselves through their children. Their children are individuals with their own characteristics and expression. This is the core of many problems with children, IMO. Yes, the fundies make it worse but it takes a bit of the parents own stubbornness and belief that they can change something fundamental to someone.

[rachel89]

This story gives me the chills, because in late November, I was very sad and frustrated and I had an icident where I  turned off my headlights went over to the wrong side of a country road for a few seconds. I didn't plan to do it, but acted on an impulse. After that I began searching for therapist, but put it off until I had an emotional break down in December where I missed work and sat crying in my room for hours. Right now, I'm glad that nothing happened, but I can understand how emotionally abusive parents could push a transgender child over the edge, its difficult enough when you're in the closet and your parents are clueless.
Concerning her parents, I think they deserve be in prison and to live their lives in total shame. For what they have done to their daughter, they deserve unlimited pain in this world, and in the next. Her parents will probably never go to prison and we don't know if there is a "next world," but they can be made famous and made the object of public scorn in this world.

[Asche]

I expect that her parents finally had their eyes opened but now it is too late and they will have to live with the knowledge that they didn't hear the cries of pain from their child ...

My understanding is that they haven't.

They did hear the cries of pain.

They just evidently thought being able to cling to their rigid ideas of Right and Wrong was worth more than their child's life.  Leelah's parents were (as she describes it) more concerned with maintaining their image as "good Christian parents" than with her welfare.

Parents sacrificing their children to their "principles", their agendas, their pride has a long and (IMHO overly) hallowed history.  Iphigenia, Isaac, Jephthah's unnamed daughter, and of course all the children sacrificed in wars by parents who sent them off with a "with your shield or on it." 

FWIW, back in the days when I was closest to suicide myself, I remember my mother saying out of the blue how she thought people who committed suicide were so awful because doing so made the other people in their lives feel bad.  I'm pretty sure I'd never told anyone about my thoughts, but I got the message: if I did commit suicide, she wasn't going to concern herself with what had driven me to it, only what a bad boy I was for making her feel bad.  I'm pretty confident that that's how Leelah's parents are taking it.

[CrysC]

It's really an education thing.  Both for transgender youth as well as parents.  Parents who face this in their children need to learn the reality of the condition and not pass it off just hoping it goes away.  Transgender youth need to know that there is indeed hope.  Even if you have to wait until you are an adult, you can be made whole.  If you look at/near the bigger cities this is better, but still not great.  The rural areas are much worse with nothing so rough as a small town that you can't disappear into.  It is very tragic but at least this awful incident is in the news and getting people to talk.  There is an article on it in the center placement on cnn.com. 

I can't imagine what the parents must eventually feel as they are torn by guilt, loss and the conflict with what they had convinced themselves were strong moral values.  I still want to pimp slap them but I'd rather be thrown into a shredder than feel what they must live with for the rest of their lives.  My brothers all have the extreme christian value issue and still don't understand things.  They are so screwed up they have their kids in a private school specifically to avoid having their kids being taught that homosexuality is acceptable.  They think it's something you can simply choose not to do like stealing or something criminal/immoral.  I pity them as they will become pariahs themselves like old bigots in modern society.  As I cannot fix them, they are not in my life.  The caution I would have for anybody upset by the situation is to please not return their idiotic ignorance with hate.  It doesn't make things better.
still want to pimp slap them though.....

[Myarkstir]

Because they did commit child abuse. The crime was that they refused to allow her to transition. They refused the treatment she needed. Her parents should be charged responsible for her death. However, I would also accuse her therapists of the same crime. It is no secret that trans people in particular are at a higher risk for depression and suicide. Both the therapists and parents did everything they shouldn't have done, and they are responsible for her death.

They need to be held responsible, and made an example out of so that other doctors and family, particularly parents, know what happens when they kill one of our own.

Under TOS 5,10 and 15 accusing various individuals is not permitted on the forum or chat.

We encourage discussion of this subject and we understand that it touches a lot of us on very personal levels. But please leave accusations to the proper legal authorities. We are neither police,  judge or jury. 

[mrs izzy]

To be honest I hate everyday I hear of a lost soul that I have failed them.

I am the proof that one can be there but live.

So you want to blame anyone then I am more to blame.

[TamarasWay]

Concerning her parents, I think they deserve be in prison and to live their lives in total shame. For what they have done to their daughter, they deserve unlimited pain in this world, and in the next. Her parents will probably never go to prison and we don't know if there is a "next world," but they can be made famous and made the object of public scorn in this world.

I do not agree with your with your rather myopic and self centered judgment.  These parents were acting in good faith in accordance with their own personal beliefs and doing what they believed was the right thing for their child.  They have just lost their child.

You might consider that perhaps this child had other issues that caused them to self destruct.   I do not believe that you, or anybody here should be so quick and self righteous to judge.

[BunnyBee]

I wouldn't spend too much effort defending her parents, but I think the negativity isn't doing any good.   Leelah told us to make society better, not harass or threaten her family.  Put your outrage and passion toward positive change.  Her parents failed her, and are no longer relevant.   All this energy could be put toward good use and I'd hate to see it all wasted on her parents.

[stephaniec]

Leelah wanted us to find answers not throw around more hate no matter under what guise

[frances_larina]

Now that a few days have passed, the one thought that keeps resurfacing for me is this dichotomy:

- Federal Judges have decided that trans prisoners in Ohio have a legal right to medically indicated endocrine treatments.

- To this day Ohio has 86 counties where parents have a legal right to withhold lifesaving medical care from children on religious grounds.

I just can't wrap my head around how lawmakers and judges can set irrational, self-serving religious beliefs above the physical well being of children.

[Marcellow]

I feel that it's a problem that the trans community is only really united when tragedy occurs but once it's over, it's back to business as usual as if we never learned anything from these deaths. This better mean something, I really don't want to realize that we only make progress with tragedy rather than celebrating accomplishments of the living.

[Wynternight]

Please keep this topic civil and remember the TOS. I know this is a very sensitive issue but keep things polite. Bashing of any kind will not be tolerated.

[rachel89]

Maybe I got a little too angry, but this is very upsetting for me.

[suzifrommd]

Maybe I got a little too angry, but this is very upsetting for me.

For all of us.

For my part, I'd like to see a legal and cultural framework where denying a child's gender identity is as much child abuse as any other type of emotional abuse.

But in the absence of that framework, it is possible that the parents who damaged her were just trying to be good people in the only way they knew how. The most troubling part of their behavior has been their reaction afterward, seeing how disastrously their actions turned out, and yet being unable to second guess them.

[Asche]

... it is possible that the parents who damaged her were just trying to be good people in the only way they knew how.

suzi, I have the greatest respect for you, but I'm going to throw that excuse down on the concrete and blast it with my flamethrower until it's nothing more than black flakes.  (I'm imagining some sort of evil amoeba-like alien parasitic sci-fi/horror organism.)

It seems like whenever someone has done something horrible, especially to me or to people I care about, people excuse it with "they didn't know any better."  I especially get this from my family.  You can excuse anything that way.

It's 2015, folks!  Not 1015!  The knowledge is out there.  If you have kids, you have a responsibility to find out what they need.  Their lives are depending upon your competence.  You have a responsibility to notice when your practices aren't working and look for help and keep looking for something that does work.  If Leelah had been schizophrenic, would we excuse her parents if they'd tried to beat it out of her (to the point of killing her) rather than going to a psychiatrist?  Any halfway decent psychologist would have seen that how they were treating her wasn't working and was in fact harming her -- that's why they went to "Christian" therapists instead of a real therapist.  They wanted therapists that they could trust not to suggest that they accept that Leelah wasn't going to be an ANSI-standard boy.  They chose to not know any better.

No, I will not give her parents a pass.  Ignorance is no excuse, especially when it has such horrible consequences.

[suzifrommd]

It's 2015, folks!  Not 1015!  The knowledge is out there.  If you have kids, you have a responsibility to find out what they need.  Their lives are depending upon your competence.  You have a responsibility to notice when your practices aren't working and look for help and keep looking for something that does work.  If Leelah had been schizophrenic, would we excuse her parents if they'd tried to beat it out of her (to the point of killing her) rather than going to a psychiatrist?  Any halfway decent psychologist would have seen that how they were treating her wasn't working and was in fact harming her

Everything you say here is true. I believe, as you do, that ultimately her parents bear the lion's share of the responsibility for her death.

But I can also put myself in the place of someone who has been told their whole life by everyone they respect "Don't listen those people. Those people are the mouth of the devil. Listen to me. I'm the real truth." Whose very value system involves having ultimate faith in a particular viewpoint and the questioning of any part of that viewpoint as heretical.

I would like to believe that, even growing up in that sort of environment, I would think for myself and question whether I had to do that to my kid. But not everyone has that sort of willingness to go against culture.

I can see a parent distraught at the direction a kid is taking, believing the kid will be condemned to Hell if nothing is done. I can imagine going to the only person whose wisdom is trusted - the clergyman - and fearfully following his advice lest my worst fears realize.

So in the final analysis, I am quicker to condemn the institutions that substitute their own particular brand of hate and indoctrination for good advice than the parents who relied on those institutions.