Leelah Alcorn, transgender teen, commited suicide

[Meadmaker]

I haven't been naked in a "public" place since HS. The closest I've been is in my underthings. My kids didn't shower after gym class like we used to. Are there a lot of places where adults are running around naked these days?

I've had a gym membership for many years. At my Bally's health club, when it was time to shower, I would take off my clothes, throw my towel over my shoulder, and walk to the shower. Most of the guys in the locker room were fairly old. Lots of gray hair. Lots of nudity.

Bally's sold the club and transferred my membership to a new LA Fitness club. I started using it. Younger crowd, on average. Off to the showers. Throw towel over shoulder. Look around. Realize I'm the only one on display. Everyone else keeps things wrapped up behind a towel until they are inside the shower stall.

Kids these days.

I found it interesting that in this era of greater sexual openness, more people felt compelled to hide their bodies. Not sure if it's significant, but I found it interesting.

 

[malicus]

Really? Did you contact the driver and ask them about how they feel or are you just making assumptions?

Seriously? It's unreasonable to assume that a driver who hit and killed someone is not currently enjoying a joie de vive? Perhaps ruining his life is an extreme assumption, but he is taking this to his grave.

 

[Stout]

Believe it or not, I'm the same way or at least I have traditionally been.

My "default setting" has always been to be way, way too concerned about what random, anonymous people (let alone real life people, who I'm even more like this about) feel and think.

A good example would be how I routinely feel an incredible amount of concern and stress when I see someone I vehemently disagree with getting ganged up on on a forum.

A recent example would be Ann in the UVA "rape" case thread. It was very, very difficult for me to read what I felt were overly harsh/rude/aggressive posts toward her from people I very very strongly agreed with. I have this natural "oh no, someone's outnumbered and they probably feel embarrassed" type of reaction. This also extends to when I see a bad comedy skit bombing, or a comedian bombing on stage. I almost cannot bear to see another person be embarrassed. It is extremely difficult for me to watch because I seem to have some sort of over-exaggerated sympathetic response to that sort of thing.

Of course, most people here would not suspect that about me because I make what people consider to be very offensive posts, I think. If you look at my post history though you'll find it's only my worldview and abstract thoughts which are "offensive", and you will find very little in the way of engaging harshly and one on one with another poster directly. I'm sure a lot of people would say "yea, typical coward hater. You can't say the sorts of things you believe to anyone's face, you are only able to have such awful views because you cut yourself off from looking at the personal stories impacted by people who think like you!" but my harsh worldview is actually very new to me. I was as hardcore of a progressive touchy feely type as you could care to find until a few years ago. I'm still processing a lot of recent, very significant changes to my view of the world, and figuring out what (if any) implications those have for how I interact with other people. It comes naturally to me to be deferential and warm to individuals, and I've had a great many close friends who would surprise those who see my views expressed here, in terms of what sort of people they are.

I guess I've just come to believe there are some very unfortunate, inconvenient, and unpleasant realities in our world which cannot be wished away and which, sadly, have very hurtful implications for a lot of people.

But enough about all of that. You seem to believe what I said about the space alien example was offensive.

I'm not sure why. It was merely an attempt at humor, and infusing a bit of randomness and silliness into the post.

I wasn't attempting to imply transgender people are equivalent to space aliens, and I don't have any negative feelings about space aliens anyway.

IMO, Ann was more than competent and was arguing her case for the same reasons we were arguing ours while waiting for more information and when that information came out, there was acknowledgement that the facts didn't support the article. As an aside, go check out what eventually happened in the Daisy Coleman case that you were arguing last year. It was something nobody even suggested. Coleman got boinked before she got drunk.

As a former progressive, I'm sure you're more than aware that pile ons, guilt tripping, shaming, reporting and banning are the standard operating procedure in those spaces. That doesn't usually fly here even though some people try it and is usually the tell that somebody doesn't have an argument to put forth. Read the comments section of Myers blog WRT this issue for at least two examples of this happening.

Yes, there are a lot of very unfortunate, inconvenient, and unpleasant realities in our world ad for some reason the progressive mindset seems to enjoy those realities and when they're lacking, tend to make them up just so they can attack them. The fun comes in trying to differentiate the "real" realities from the "fake" ones.

Your space alien analogy was obvious. I could use it and run with it in the next post I'm going to make which I'm sure some people will find offensive.

ETA Scratch that last bit, I just killed my own argument as I was typing it. damn.

 

[bluesjnr]

Ran into traffic. Tramitizes some poor driver for life. Their last act was an extremely self-centered one. And that's how they should be remembered.

Her outlook on life was extremely self-centered.

 

[Mudcat]

Kids these days.

It was the opposite in the locker room when I went to high school, but I was uncomfortable around others especially in those circumstances.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Tramitizes some poor driver for life.

It turns them into a tram?

 

[Slowvehicle]

Or, we could just let them live their current lives as the gender they identify or choose. Radical, I know, but we're supposed to tolerate Mormons and Rosicruxions and snake handlers and conservatives, so I think we can work it out to tolerate (yeah, simply tolerate.... not agree with.... not support.... simply tolerate) someone whose gender identity gives us pause to shudder, which is what the problem is. It isn't right or wrong in their Big Book of Moral Codes. It's icky. It's disgusting. They aren't like us.<respectful snip>

QFT

 

[Slowvehicle]

Yes, the mother said:

"We don't support that, religiously," Leelah Alcorn's mother told CNN Wednesday. "But we told him that we loved him unconditionally. We loved him no matter what.

She also said that they had told "him" that they didn't have the money to pay for the gender reassignment, to what extent that is true I have no way of knowing, but it's certainly not free.

Right.

They loved "him" "unconditionally", on the condition that he stop this silliness about being "her"; her, on the other hand, they rejected because 'god'.

 

[Slowvehicle]

People are assigned a sex and experience their gender. Sometimes people's day-to-day gender experience does not conform unambiguously with the expectations of their sex assigned at birth, which can be a source of anxiety and distress. This was the case with Leelah.

"Boy pretending to be a girl" is the sort of dangerously uncritical view which kills people. It is neither accurate nor a useful depiction of trans people's experiences or motivations.

...and that is the bottom line. Pretending it's a "phase" and "it'll go away" does not work. At the very least, "unconditional love" should support an approach that works. (Even if that approach is different, case-by-case.)

 

[angrysoba]

Meanwhile Stuie kills hinself and no one cares because he has no odd back story

It's not really an "odd back story". I don't think the interest here is in the fact that the person who committed suicide is some kind of freak, rather it sheds a disturbing light on a social problem in which people similar to the person who committed suicide are treated as "odd" or freakish.

 

[Pup]

If you could poll every straight male in the US for instance, and ask them whether they would have a sexual relationship with a woman who was born male and had their penis surgically removed... what percentage do you think would say "no"? I'm thinking the percentage would be in the high 90's. I think such a widely and strongly held desire cannot be easily dismissed or treated as trivial.

That's just incredibly sad. Imagine being a woman and being told that 90% of men won't want you. That's a percentage usually applied to people with horrific scars, major disabilities requiring constant care, that kind of thing.

Maybe it doesn't get better, and someone like Leelah should have been told the truth: 90% of men won't want anything to do with you romantically.

Dessi, if that percentage is true, how does one counsel people who need to deal with that realization? It just seems devastating. At least I'd feel devastated to be told that 90% of straight women wouldn't want anything to do with me romantically, no matter how kind, witty, polite, friendly, well-groomed, etc. etc. I tried to be.

 

[Arcade22]

Perhaps ruining his life is an extreme assumption, but he is taking this to his grave.

But that's what he said. The way he said made it seem like his whole life is over and he could pretty much curl up in a hole and die because he ran over someone.

 

[Arcade22]

I'm thinking the percentage would be in the high 90's. I think such a widely and strongly held desire cannot be easily dismissed or treated as trivial.

Since you seem so sure about that then let us see some statistics that back that up.

 

[Caper]

That's just incredibly sad. Imagine being a woman and being told that 90% of men won't want you.

90% is extremely generous IMO. But even still the pool of potential mates is still large, if you live in any kind of populated area. There are also just as many opposite trans people out there and they will date you.


Also, it's not like most people are lucky enough to have 100% of people willing to date you. If you are not very attractive you are probably sitting around 90% as well.

 

[Caper]

But that's what he said. The way he said made it seem like his whole life is over and he could pretty much curl up in a hole and die because he ran over someone.

The kids last act in life was to scar someone else. I'll remember him/her as I remember school shooters. Who many times suffer from different yet equally emotionally devastating issues that society does not treat properly.

 

[Slowvehicle]

That's just incredibly sad. Imagine being a woman and being told that 90% of men won't want you. That's a percentage usually applied to people with horrific scars, major disabilities requiring constant care, that kind of thing.

Maybe it doesn't get better, and someone like Leelah should have been told the truth: 90% of men won't want anything to do with you romantically.

Dessi, if that percentage is true, how does one counsel people who need to deal with that realization? It just seems devastating. At least I'd feel devastated to be told that 90% of straight women wouldn't want anything to do with me romantically, no matter how kind, witty, polite, friendly, well-groomed, etc. etc. I tried to be.

I do not share Skeptic Tank's opinion; I am of the opinion that there are more grown-ups put there than that.

That being said, why would one want to marry another, that would think one a monster?

 

[sylvan8798]

That's just incredibly sad. Imagine being a woman and being told that 90% of men won't want you. That's a percentage usually applied to people with horrific scars, major disabilities requiring constant care, that kind of thing.

Maybe it doesn't get better, and someone like Leelah should have been told the truth: 90% of men won't want anything to do with you romantically.

Dessi, if that percentage is true, how does one counsel people who need to deal with that realization? It just seems devastating. At least I'd feel devastated to be told that 90% of straight women wouldn't want anything to do with me romantically, no matter how kind, witty, polite, friendly, well-groomed, etc. etc. I tried to be.

Not to get off-topic here, but isn't that comparable to what a gay man would experience? I mean, 90% of men don't want him romantically either, no matter how kind, witty, polite, etc. he tries to be?

 

[Pup]

Not to get off-topic here, but isn't that comparable to what a gay man would experience? I mean, 90% of men don't want him romantically either, no matter how kind, witty, polite, etc. he tries to be?

True, but that brings up the question: is disliking transexual mates an inborn feeling that is unchangeable? Or is it just an unreasonable prejudice that could be eradicated?

Gay men have a limited pool of potential mates, but no one (well, few people) would say that straight males should be encouraged to take gay mates. However, it doesn't seem unreasonable to tell a squeamish male to just get over himself and accept a female as female, regardless how she was born.

Is a male dislike of transexual mates inborn and unchangeable, or is it one of those prejudices that fade as society changes?

Personally, I'm having trouble understanding it, because it wouldn't bother me. I'd be far more concerned about having compatible interests, personalities, likes and dislikes, etc.

 

[Caper]

Is a male dislike of transexual mates inborn and unchangeable, or is it one of those prejudices that fade as society changes?

It's not a dislike. I don't dislike trans people. I work with a trans-woman (used to be a man) that is really cool and is the only trans person I know personally. But there is not one iota of attraction there. Maybe it's because she looks like she could be a defensive lineman for an NFL team. I know she wants to be seen as a woman.... and after a while it becomes easier to see her that way.... but I wouldn't give up a seat in a lifeboat for the titanic for her.

 

[marplots]

People are assigned a sex and experience their gender. Sometimes people's day-to-day gender experience does not conform unambiguously with the expectations of their sex assigned at birth, which can be a source of anxiety and distress. This was the case with Leelah.

"Boy pretending to be a girl" is the sort of dangerously uncritical view which kills people. It is neither accurate nor a useful depiction of trans people's experiences or motivations.

It almost sounds like you think one's beliefs could alter reality. If you just wish hard enough...

"Assigned?" Really? By who, God?
The gender of a biological organism is a fact, as close to a demonstrable fact as we have in science.

Isn't the real problem here bound up in "the expectations of their sex?" That's an issue with gender equality, not whether someone is male or female. And those who buy into it by pretending to be something they are not are only furthering the stereotypes.

If I say I "feel like a woman" or "feel like a man inside," I'm pushing my ideas of what a man or woman should be onto a real, physical fact. The same women who decry a stereotype of "gently, caring mother figure" ought to be up in arms here.

And, just to get mine while the gettin' is good, I'd like to mention that, while I'm biologically under six feet, inside I am a very tall person - almost 7 feet. That's how I feel and I know if I wish hard enough, people will start to treat me like the giant I am inside. (Oh, and I feel I may be an Eskimo as well.)