Suicide of Transgender Teen Sparks Heightened Advocacy for Trans Rights
http://www.newsweek.com/suicide-leelah-alcorn-transgender-teen-sparks-new-advocacy-trans-rights-295724 The suicide of transgender teenager Leelah Alcorn has brought heightened attention to the injustices that transgender individuals face.Alcorn, 17, walked in front of a tractor trailer in Warren County in Ohio early Sunday morning. She left behind a wrenching suicide note on Tumblr, which she scheduled to post a few hours after her death. Leelah's note has over 50,000 shares and comments on Tumblr thus far.In the note, Leelah spoke about not being accepted by her Christian parents for her true gender identity, and how they wouldnt give her consent to begin transitioning on her 16th birthday. I immediately told my mom, and she reacted extremely negatively, telling me that it was a phase, that I would never truly be a girl, that God doesnt make mistakes, that I am wrong, she wrote. Leelah then goes on to describe how her parents took her to Christian therapists, who told her she was selfish and wrong and she should look to God for help." As a final wish, she implores parents to not do the same to their children.Alcorns mother wrote a Facebook post in which she described her daughter's death as an accident, and referred to Alcorn by her birth name, Joshua Ryan, instead of Leelah.The suicide rate for transgender youths is staggeringly high. The Youth Suicide Prevention Program reports that over 50 percent of transgender youths have attempted to commit suicide at least once before reaching the age of 20. Health care options for transgender individuals are limited as well, and the majority of violence perpetuated against LGBT folks stems from transphobia. Recent data from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs shows that nearly three-quarters of LGBT homicide victims in 2013 (72 percent) were transgender women.In her note, Leelah requests that her things be sold and the money be donated to transgender civil rights and support groups. The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people arent treated the way I was, theyre treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights. Gender needs to be taught about in schools, the earlier the better. My death needs to mean something. My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year. I want someone to look at that number and say thats fucked up and fix it. Fix society. Please, she wrote.Leelahs death has sparked an outcry on Twitter from activists and transgender leaders, like Janet Mock, advocating for compassion and tolerance.
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As a Christian Mom, I sit and cry. The fact this family couldn't or wouldn't see their child as a gift from God goes against tenants of the faith. Many in the Christian community have seemingly elevated themselves to a righteousness that spits on the very faith they profess. Where was the love, the mercy and grace that are core to their faith?
I don't have a transgender child yet I know it'd present challenges I'd have to learn about. When my granddaughter proclaimed she thought she was bisexual at 16, I was thrilled shecame to me. Being a Christian doesn't mean I checked my brain and compassion at the altar....if anything, faith hasgrowth mycompassion and empathy for my fellow man. Words like "the least of these" or "my brothers keeper" guide my daily life.
The pain of daily life for this child would have been excruciating,I cannot fathom the rejection of her Mother, evidently neither could she.
Evidently a mom who's shot by her 2-yr old son gleans more interest than the teen who killed herself here.
"Alcorn's mother wrote a Facebook post in which she described her daughter's death as an accident, and referred to Alcorn by her birth name, Joshua Ryan, instead of Leelah."
She did nothing for her "son". What she did do was chastise what she defined as her son, and refuse to recognize her daughter. You seem to think that the answer to the kid's problems lie in accepting a gender identity chosen by others. Imagine if throughout your adolescence your mother insisted that you are actually a girl, even though you felt that you are a boy, and maybe you will begin to understand the plight of the transgender.The two transgendered kids that I personally know of have parents, family and friends that support their identity. Consequently, they are well adjusted, and don't walk into traffic. There's nothing wrong with not understanding their choice, or thinking that it is a very strange choice, but there is something destructive about refusing to accept that it is their choice.
Yes I saw that right away too, Hal. It was as if Leelah's parents refused to acknowledge what was truly important to her by continuing to call her Joshua. Like they can't accept her decision to do what made her happy.
I think we can't ever judge what will make another person happy. That is a matter of the heart for each individual. I was glad to see posts about this on FaceBook, because it raises awareness that I truly hope leads to acceptance and respect. If we can't allow each person to choose how they want to live, then we might as well all be living in a prison cell.
***Please don't attack me, NT Friends. I rarely post any comments on articles anymore because there have been a few members who just cannot bring themselves to respect differing opinions without being truly mean. It is ok that we don't all think alike. I love the expressions of individuality here! But I don't always see respect in those expressions, and to me that should be first and foremost. IMO.
***
Maybe people are so unsure or uncomfortable they aren't ready to talk about it, Hal. It doesn't necessarily mean they don't care. It might take time for people to sort out their feelings a little. That or they may have been verbally attacked for sharing differing opinions on other articles and refuse to set themselves up for it again. That is where I am at 99% of the time anymore. I love my NT Friends, and have very dear ones that I treasure. But outside of my trusted Groups, I am afraid to comment.
Our daughter is 18 and getting ready to go to college in the Fall. Our son is 13 and getting ready to enter High School. I love that they feel comfortable with my husband and me talking about the hard stuff, such as this article. I am really really proud of them for respecting differing cultures, customs, races, traditions, choices, opinions.
I think communicating and learning together are key. Otherwise I think closed-mindedness develops.
I appreciate you tackling this issue. I think you're pretty great. Give it time. Maybe you are planting seeds right now for many people. Someone else will come along and water those seeds with other conversations.
Dam Hal I agree with you for once. I have gay friends who are married or want to be and my wife has like friends also. The mother sending the child to Christian Therapists or saying god doesn't make mistakes is stupid.
His suicide, like any other, is a tragedy of lost potential.
Gender reassignment is usually a mask for more significant mental health issues. It's seen as some some magical panacea for pyscho-sexual problems. Post surgical regrets are common and suicide rates for those who undergo the surgery are incredibly high, some 20 times higher than the normal population. Sex change is simply biologically impossible. It's a shame he didn't seek counseling to deal with his obviously crippling mental health issues.
Oddly enough both in my cousin's daughter and my husband's cousin's daughter announced this year that they were going to changing their sexes to male. I have seen first hand how difficult this is on a family. Coming out as gay is really no biggie, since the child you are looking at, is still that same person. It's their sex life that is unexpected to a family. But when you have a transgender child, they become a different person... at least on the surface. I think I have seen the best of this change, as in the parents accepted it, and are supportive of their child. But they have also told me that they are grieving for what feels like the child they have lost. This is a topic never discussed.
As a parent, I would always love my child, no matter what their sexual preference is, but I have to say that having a transgender child, is not easy on anyone. I do find this story sad, though. No one should feel that they had to make a choice of being trapped in their bodies or losing their family.
Hal,
Loads of little girls have penis envy, but it is just a stage. Also one must remember that there are a percentage of people who have had sex change too early in life, and later regret it. Just as we now know that we should wait on determining the sex of hermaphrodites, well into their teens, I would say that this decision should be made with a mature mind.
Furthermore, there is science now to guide us. Our brains give a lot away about gender, and this can be used as a guide on who really has "sexual dysphoria" and who doesn't.
I have to agree with you, Robert.
Does this mean if you don't read my link it means a "lack of concern too ?
And in 1994, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal prison officials in Terre Haute, Indiana, failed to take reasonable measures to protect a transgender woman who was repeatedly raped after she was sent to live with the general male population.
I promise you it is... since I had it. Yet I am 100% woman now.
I think that there are lots of agendas going on. There is the parents whose faith is making the decisions for them. The 17 year old doesn't live in a cave and I am sure has been reading LGBT material, or this thought would have never crossed her mind. What we had here was nothing less than a disaster waiting to happen. So yes, agendas all away around with the kid getting lost in the middle.
I am a strong advocate of science and this would have been a wonderful case for an MRI to help the decision making. Sadly, none of this came to pass.
This kid was sick in the head and the world is most likely a better place without him. He showed no concern for the feelings of others when he dragged that truck driver into his selfish stunt. I feel sorry for the truck driver. The parents they probably did the best they could but when your kid has a screw loose sometimes there is nothing you can do to save them. The kid could have waited until he was an adult and then decided how he wanted to live his life it was only a year away. Sign him up for a Darwin award. My parents were Christians and made me go through the brainwashing process too but I knew when I became an adult I could live free. As long as I was eating their food and sleeping under their roof I had to respect their decisions.
This kid was sick in the head and the world is most likely a better place without him.
Given there is no s/ tag, this sentence is the vilest I've ever read on NT's. Your lack of empathy for this child is stunning, mind boggling stunning.
The kid was old enough to know the harm he was causing to that truck driver. If he wanted to bump himself off thats fine and dandy but dragging an innocent bystander into his sick plot tells us we are better off without him.
You've already identified he was "sick in the head", how do you in the next breath proclaim a sick plot? Mental illness doesn't come with an on-off switch.
I agree the kid had a mental illness. There is no doubt he suffered because of his mental illness. He chose to turn the switch off by rubbing himself out but this was not a victimless crime. The truck driver is the victim and so are the parents. He should be looked down upon for his actions not idolized. He had the freedom to change his sex and that was his choice but he needed to realize as a child he had to wait until he was an adult only a year away to do so.
Hal,
You have got to be kidding, right? Since when is science like praying? MRI's have proved that being gay isn't a choice and they have proved that people who are truly transexual and even bi sexual have different brains than "straight" people. You might want to look over these links:
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I think that science is better at determining these things then any LBGT councilor is. One is anecdotal and the other is medical, and in the case of younger children, these scans could help identify those who are truly transexual, from those who are just confused.
Dean,
You have obviously never dealt with the mentally ill. By definition, they make bad choices. No one is idolizing him. This story is a total disaster. The logical thing would have been to wait a year, but obviously, he wasn't in that place mentally.
You obviously didn't read the links, Hal. These are structural MRI's and not functional ones. It was these kinds of MRI's that proved that transexuality was a real thing. Without these structural differences, there may be other health issues like hormonal or mental illness that might be at play, and not true transexuality.
I totally get that Randy.
I understand that she would have lost her family, and that would have been very sad for her, but still, given the situation, waiting the year would have given her independence to go forth with her gender reassignment. Obviously, she was mentally ill at the time as well.
Where did I say that?
I'm not sure why you think that turning 18 would give her the independence to go forth with gender reassignment. Being a legal adult and being independent are hardly the same thing. If she gave up on the idea, at 18 she might have parents who let her (him) live in their house, stay on their health and car insurance, be on their cell phone plan, eat their food, pay college tuition, etc. If she exercised her legal right to go through with the transition at age 18, it's pretty clear that she would have none of those things, and would likely be homeless, penniless and family-less. The typical 18 year old doesn't receive a trust fund to kick off their independence.
I'm also not in agreement with the term "mentally ill" for gender disorder. Is a hermaphrodite mentally ill? The plight of a transgendered person may be as fundamentally simple as a brain that has both male and female components, just like how a hermaphrodite has male and female physical components.
From the second article:
Yeah, I'm going with science.
In fact, it has proved the differences in a gay brain, which was the reason it was removed from the DSM as a mental disorder.
Well, the individual his or herself.
Or this:
We are talking about hardwired behaviors and mental illness verse actual physical differences, unless you are calling transexuals mentally ill, which I am not. I believe that it does exist, and those trapped in the wrong body are living a hellish life. But I also think that the LBGT community, is pushing to have people who are otherwise confused, into a decision they would not make, if they had the proper medical dx. Hence why before anyone goes through such a process, they should have all their information at hand, including an MRI.
Hal,
I am not sure if we are talking at each other, or with each other, so let me try and clarify again. In normal situations, this child could have gone to their parents and they would have had a proper evaluation done. But given that this child had parents who opposed it, then the logical thing to have done was wait till 18 and then make their own decisions. Life is hard, but their are other 17 year olds around the world who are more worried about where their next meal is coming from, and have little time to ponder over their sex, and if they have a moment to think about it, have no access to antibiotics never mind sexual reassignment.
I made a point of saying earlier on that I don't think that transexuality is a mental illness. I also made a point of saying thathermaphrodites wait now to determine what sex they are before having any surgery done. The human brain is not developed fully developed until the age of 25. I am notadvocatingfor waiting until then, but adecision like this should be made as late as possible, as it is not easily reversed.
Unfortunately the Church is trying to be the educators, in control of medical procedures, and against science in the medical and field of science and legal as well as controlling the government. Based on this families actions they killed their own son. They should be tried and imprisoned for pretending to be doctor, psych, genecist and flat lying that GOOOOOOOD never makes a mistake.
HAL I must be loosing it I agree with you more and more lately. Not any ways near 100 % but way way more than I used to. Spent some time in College working in a mental asylum. I believe these parents were a big part of the child feeling that there was no future on earth for him/her now or ever. The church is a rigid non bending very poor excuse for dealing with problems in general. The churches answer is almost always black or white and life is not nor ever was that simple. The older I get the more I realized that religion made me very rigid in my beliefs. I remember arguing with professors in Psych in college and science teachers in school. Time makes us more understanding or you wallow in ignorance all your life.
Dean I believe you would be amazed at how many preteen and teenagers consider suicide. Bad grades home life bullying druggie parents or boozers for parents or parents who are child abusers 1 in 3 girls were sexually abused or so said the text books in the early sixties. We did a blind written test by placing a slip of paper in a ballot type box. Three classes participated. We brought them in most of us used news paper print to answer three questions #1 M/F 2 Sexually abused Y/N The text's numbers were low for both Male and Females. WE lived in a very religious community. Some of the ones that I was told about by the individual later commited suicide 3 girls. One girl was sexually abused by parents to prove to her she was female. Or that was their reasoning they spent many years of their lives in prison to thing about it. Two of their daughters commited suicide. Both suicides girls were in their thirties. Don't know why that age for either. Their lives were toast after their parents were sentenced and sent to prison. People adults blamed the girls not the parents. The reason I Pursued a Psych degree was people always opened up to me. Think I was mostly a good listener and never told the horrific stories. I taught in the Military for a large part of my career. Went thru the academy late in my career. Early I found I could not work in Psych field as all to often sexual abusers were released or found not guilty and the child was blamed or it just happened. I very quickly discovered that I couldn't close a file and walk away. When a pre teen or early teen was abused it burned me deep. Sorry off topic.