Transgender Teen Commits Suicide

I'll post multiple sources to go along with it, but basically this teen commits suicide due to her parents.

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2014/12/30/transgender-teen-death-needs-mean-something/21044407/

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jobarrow/a-transgender-17-year-old-left-a-suicide-note-on-tumblr-plea

http://heavy.com/news/2014/12/leelah-alcorn-joshua-alcorn-dead-suicide-rip-ohio-tumblr-suicide-note/

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/12/30/transgender-teen-death-means-something/21059923/

I'm actually surprised that there isn't already a thread on this. I'll chip in my 2 cents when this episode of anime finishes.

Sounds like Joshua needed to be in an institution, as they weren't mentally stable. Another life snuffed out before it got a real chance to live, that is rather sad, regardless of the reason.

so it was guy who wanted to be a girl?

That is probably the most simplistic way to say it but sure. It was an individual born male who identified as female.

There's good reasons why nobody posted it, few people here will have much good to say about Leelah.

It's a truly awful story, I've been posting it around my forums and guilds, this kind of pain transmen and women go through needs to be seen, and hopefully, Leelah will have her wish that things like what her parents did to her, will finally stop.

I just hope she's at peace now.
I had hoped her parents learned something valuable from this, but judging by her mothers facebook post, they learned nothing, she still identified her daughter as a "son". And rightfully got backlash for it.

For all the achievements in transgender care and rights, today feels like a very dark day for it ;; I worry for how many stories of other transmen and women who aren't talked about :/

Couple that with a story about a 2yr old who accidentally set off a firearm in his mother's purse, killing her, and it's turning out to be a horrible way to end the year ;;

When I read this story, I was literally tearing up in my eyes because Leelah's story reminded me in some way how hard it was to come out to my parents. My mom for one didn't take the news of me being gay nicely and we had a LOT of arguments, it was hard for me to be well...ME in front of her and I felt alone, constricted and attempted suicide multiple times leading to a couple mental hospital visits. But after time passed, me and my mom grew closer and she eventually accepted me for being gay and being who I'm and now she is my #1 supporter.

I just wish Leelah had more time to know that despite the hardship this world is dishing out for us in the LGBT community, it WILL get better. And yeah I agree with Katharyn that it doesn't seem Leelah's mom will ever change her way of thinking. Some people in this world are so close minded that they filter out anything that doesn't fall into their realm of "normality", leelah's parents being prime examples.

I only hope they will wake up one day and come to the realization that their daughter is gone and they'll never see her again and what they did to her and put her through. NO ONE should have to suffer like Leelah did.

From this, I feel that Leelah's final wishes will be fulfilled someday soon. Not sure when, but they will. Will it take time? Yes. But, we can all agree that NO ONE should have to suffer in this world, no one should have to suffer the same way Leelah did.

Leelah, I hope that you can now rest in peace and know that your final wishes will be fulfilled someday because you got me as well as our other fellow LGBT peers and everyone else who supports LGBT rights.

0/10 would not smash

how's that for being treated like a girl

What the *** does that even mean?

http://www.empoweringparents.com/Im-a-Victim-So-the-Rules-Dont-Apply-to-Me-How-to-Stop-Victim-Thinking-in-Kids.php

You're a pig, Leelah made more of an impact with her life more than you probably ever will.

Am I supposed to care? There are countless people who're going to make more of an impact than me. One more means nothing.

The only reason Leelah made any 'impact' is because the LGBT movement is right behind feminism on the professional victim circle-jerk. She hasn't ever done anything of worth for the trans community, nor did she even know a single related charity to name in her will. Nobody has met her parents or knows the actual situation, besides what she posted herself. A teen who kills themselves violently is looking for attention, not a way out. She wants her parents to feel horrible for not letting her have what she wanted, as is obvious by the tone of her note.


Let's not forget, 1/9 of teenage deaths in the US are suicides. These aren't just trans people, they represent all demographics. We don't get up on a soap box for the kid who killed himself because mommy wouldn't let him be goth and the kids at school picked on him.

@comeatmebro
Yeah that's all jolly but I think being a teenage transgender boy is probably a pretty stigmatic thing. Far from the cliche "mommy wouldn't let me _______!"

I agree this is no way to bring light on the subject and it was probably best not to even have a thread because of the nature of the subject.

Deciding you're transgender as a high schooler is much more likely to be a perception that girls get treated better combined with not fitting in with male peers. The reality is that being feminine or soft as a male doesn't make you female, it's a shame that society expects it but it's simply a behavior. Behaving in a manner that girls would condone better than men doesn't make you a girl.

"I want it, give it to me" - being a LGBT issue doesn't make this a holy ground. Regret after transitioning is common, not to mention:
-More likely to commit suicide than a self-identified trans who didn't transition
-Twice as likely to be unemployed
-~15% chance they'll want to transition back after hormone therapy and/or surgery

We don't let teenagers make gigantic life-impacting decisions for a reason: they aren't fully developed and capable of deciding clearly. They're impulsive and what seems attractive today might not seem the same tomorrow. While I'll acknowledge that there are benefits to beginning a transition early(more likely to look like intended gender), the risks are non-trivial.

Many people have successfully transitioned as an informed adult, and very few are truly 'passing' regardless of starting age.. the defining factor in whether you're gender dysphoric shouldn't be whether you would be attractive as the other gender. That, to me, just reinforces the thought that they want to reap the benefits of female privilege. They feel they're female inside, but the thought of being a less attractive female is a problem to this viewpoint? Seems pretty shallow to me.

Let's not forget that MTF is 3x as likely as FTM, and transitioning for the ability to prostitute is effectively a 'career path' in Thailand. Motivations vary extremely widely and are often not even understood by the person looking for the treatment, you can't paint everyone with the same brush. The kid claims she's been a transexual since age 4, but teenagers are notorious for the whole "that's just the way i am" schlick, it's an easy way to absolve responsibility. Maybe she felt uncomfortable dealing with male culture since age 4, but a 4-year old isn't anywhere near developed enough to feel like they have the wrong body.

Look transgender issues are nothing new to me. I understand it, I've known the right and wrong kinds. I've witnessed the good, bad, and ugly of it in my life(without having to read about it.) I'm a straight guy but I use to go to a LGBT youth group with friends when I was younger. I think this is an issue that should not be publicly spoken for or against. Either way the more attention it gets the more of the wrong choices to do it are going to be made. It should be left alone.

Get ye back to Tumblr from whence ye came, SJWs!
I banish ye with the blessed powers at my command to begone from this portion of the Internet:

EL ELOHIM ELOHO ELOHIM SEBAOTH
ELION EIECH ADIER EIECH ADONAI
JAH SADAI TETRAGRAMMATON SADAI
AGIOS O THEOS ISCHIROS ATHANATON
AGLA
AMEN

i hope you're not calling me a SJW

Says go back to tumblr, uses a reddit meme.

Sure, let's see a transgender version of ferguson.

Edit: /jobemote thf

What is sjw? A new form of super saiyan?

SJW = social justice warrior, nutjobs who are obsessive about political correctness that rarely actually applies to them

so like, the opposite of my viewpoint

Oh, yeah. You're a hardass real man, John Wayne and Clint Eastwood (before he went soft) and Grizzly Adams all up in one, telling it like it is and dismissing all this sissy-pansy-wimpy PC nonsense about "feelings" and "sensitivity" and "equality".

You are such a *** lame-*** troll. Seriously.

There's going overboard on political correctness and there's learning to treat everyone with respect and dignity due to a fellow human being and their decisions about themselves.

lame trolls typically don't get responses like this

just saiyan

While it's sad that another person died because they felt "misunderstood," what Comeatmebro said is correct.

Teens kill themselves for various reasons, why again are we glorifying one specific suicide?

You get them from me frequently, so clearly your theory is debunked. ^^

We're not.

We're looking at one unfortunate instance within its own context.

Mental health issues by and large in teens -- and everyone -- are not given the attention and consideration they deserve.

However, the two issues are not mutually exclusive. Just because this by and large is a trans issue doesn't mean anyone is taking away from teen suicide or mental health issues, or that this doesn't also belong in that category too.

Quite a few people are glorifying this death not because of mental health issues, but because this suicide happens to be a transgender person.

By the looks of it, the topic isn't about mental health....

But this doesn't matter to me tbh. When people start to glorify a specific death, I'll just point out the obvious.

Working in weho for two years put me right in the mix of lgbt related suicides/assaults/murders so I just see this as another suicide probably sounds uncaring or w/e but that's just me sad ***for those who cared for her likely a burden offloaded for the shitbag parents

I don't think it's right to "glorify" this death, but I don't thinks it's necessarily glorifying it by using it as a wake-up call of sorts.

And any time someone commits suicide like this, there's some degree of mental health issues at play.

Glorifying? I think focusing is a better word. It's impossible for people to focus on ~5,000 teen suicide's a year, so people choose to focus on one or a handful. The same way people chose to circle around a single black woman who refused to leave her seat or a single rancher standing up to the government. Suicides among LGBT teens make up more than 20% of teen suicide despite being less than 5% of the total. She didn't die because she felt misunderstood, she died because she felt worthless, weird, and broken. Made so by a society that seems bent to moving backwards rather than forwards.