Trans teen commits suicide after conversion therapy

[Kanzler]

It can range from adoption or just community outreach programs to let her know that people care and that she is a normal human being. Communication WAS tried, she tried to explain it to her parents but they just ignored any kind of real psychological source and went straight to religious mumbo jumbo. Regardless of intentions, modern day parents that eschew scientific advancement for psuedo-science and superstition are a great danger to their children. They don't have to WANT to hurt them to do so. It shouldn't be the intent that decided whether or not we pull a child out of a harmful situation.

I do concede that it would take a perfect world to have a place to put all the endangered children in a given area and that just tossing children in some orphanage can be quite traumatizing in its own right.

Communication was tried, but it was not exhausted. Two parties do not always resolve a disagreement amongst themselves alone – that is why we have third parties to arbitrate, whether it be a community leader or counsellor. Intent matters because implies that the parents can be reasoned with – they have a sense of love and tolerance that can be appealed to.

Do not be so quick to write off a human being because of one disagreeable aspect. That's one thing that Leelah's parents didn't do. They didn't disown her, they didn't call her names or refer to her insultingly (please consult Leelah's reddit post in a link above). They tried to find help for Leelah, but were misguided because they thought the problem was Leelah being transgender and the solution was to remove her transgender character. Remove this belief and I think the result would have been quite different. They weren't dangerous people, they were well-meaning people with a dangerous belief. That's exactly the kind of people who would benefit from therapy the most.

Don't we have plenty of examples of devoutly religious parents who came to tolerate, if not accept, their homosexual or transgender children after an intervention (which didn't involve their immediate removal from their children)? Like I have said before, the pity is that an intervention did not come.

With respect to the idea that her parents forced her into the suicide, well, I think it's on you to make the case that it is because I don't see how we could construe that her parents pressured or coerced her to kill herself.

 

[Corvus of the Black Night]

I think ultimately here the best solution would be education. Yes, I do think they should be charged with negligence or possible child abuse, but it's pretty clear that they were extremely ignorant people, not extremely hateful people. The consequence of their ignorance is the death of their child.

Again I turn to myself, since these sorts of things cause me to reflect quite a bit. I know that if my parents (or most parents) found out about my own identity crisis that they would do everything to adjust my identity instead of transitioning to the identity because it seems like 1) a mental problem, 2) to an outsider, changing an identity would be far less potentially destructive than transitioning to an identity and 3) it doesn't require external modification, which is often perceived as undesirable by outsiders. It is absolutely imperative to consider that to an outsider these urges, desires, needs and requirements are not something that is easy to empathize with.

A little bit less foreign of an example, my parents believed that autism was bullshit or something "made up" for a conspiracy to get pills or something. I know many people who would be offended by this belief, but it's a belief based completely in ignorance, and it does sort of make sense - imagine a parent who is bombarded with the school illegally trying to medicate your child and claiming it was because they were "autistic". When I got diagnosed as an adult it was an uphill battle to educate them about the truth and I don't think it's actually improved all too much but I think they're a lot less ignorant than before.

Again, most people will turn to what they trust when approached with something very foreign or strange. My parents turned to their (faulty) knowledge, Leelah's parents turned to the Bible. It's not right, but it is imperative to do the best to educate others on how these conditions manifest themselves.