I disagree.
They should be prosecuted for murder.
Unfortunately, the world doesn't run on gut feelings. Actually, that might be a good thing...
Anyways, no, they cannot be charged with murder, unless they did one of the following:
- Had plans for killing her
- Told her to kill herself
Unless evidence comes out that they did any of those things, they cannot be charged with murder. It's important to consider the reason why - even though in this case it's obvious that Leelah was
abused or at the very perceivable least, neglected, there is no direct link between conscious actions that the parents made and her suicide.
"BUT THEIR TRANSPHOBIA--"
It's pretty clear that they do not recognize gender dysphoria as an actual type of human condition and, because of their ignorance, turned to the Bible to attempt to "heal" their son, at least in their eyes.
This is the backing behind all "trans/gay therapy" camps or whatever. Transphobia isn't inherent evil - it's rooted in not
understanding what would drive some people to do some things that are divergent behaviour. It is not hard to argue that they were doing what they thought was correct, and therefore were grossly negligent. There is no law that requires parents to recognize their identities, so there is no penalty for not doing so (such a law would be too vague to actually enact).
You could charge them possibly with child negligence or abuse. Which are not little crimes. But there's no way they are logically going to get charged with murder. Even if the imaginary "identity law" that I suggested would not be able to charge these individuals with murder.
As stated prior, if I committed suicide because of how my parents tried to weed out my body identity disorder (something that can cause permanent and irreversible damage if completed) then it would be very unlikely that people would even mention this death outside of the news. Certainly nobody would be advocating to press murder charges, but some may consider it child abuse, and may try to press charges in that direction.
In the eyes of a lot of ignorant parents, gender dysphoria has the same permanent consequences - because they simply cannot understand what would cause someone to feel that way, and they think about how they might have regret for such a decision.
I feel like a lot of people who are saying they should be charged with murder are solely saying it because the victim was transgender (and is viewed as a martyr) - since this kind of stuff happens quite a bit (I knew someone in high school who later killed himself for similar problems within the family) it's absolutely imperative to treat each case individually. Regardless of whether or not Leelah was a martyr, martyrdom is completely out of the hands of those who the martyr opposes so it's inherently unfair to simply claim that they deserve somehow worse punishment than all the other parents who pushed their kids to suicide.
Outside of Leelah's case I'm iffy anyways to claim it's just "parent's fault" anyways (and it's possible that other factors in her life pushed her down this route) since quite a few times it's a large group of factors - loneliness, poor performance, lack of will to do anything, ect.. These things all build up alongside any potential abuse from a parent as well, which further strips away the hope that someone might have.
Your intense feelings do not equate to justice.