CNN Links Transgender Suicide to Religion of Teen's Parents

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1still_waters

Guest
#1
CNN reported on the suicide death of "transgender" teen Josh "Leelah" Alcon.
They linked his suicide to his parent's religion. (See screenshot below.)

This leads me to a question.

Are we getting to a point where Christian parents could have their children taken away from them due to belief in a religion that supposedly drives parents to "abuse" their children by not accepting the "validity" of the "transgender" issue?

Will being a Christian parent be considered as dangerous as other destructive things like drinking or drug problems?

More stories like this will continue to link highly emotional situations like suicide to Christianity. Will this push people to demand removal of children from Christian parents?

Alcorn.jpg
The transgender life: What to know, say and understand - CNN.com
 
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saved1

Guest
#2
I don't believe that this will happen this is reaching quite far. All people want to see is that Christians will stop being hateful and stop disrespecting lgbt people like LEELAH. SHE deserved better than the treatment she received from her mother
 

Desdichado

Senior Member
Feb 9, 2014
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#3
I don't believe that this will happen this is reaching quite far. All people want to see is that Christians will stop being hateful and stop disrespecting lgbt people like LEELAH. SHE deserved better than the treatment she received from her mother
This article uses Josh's death as an emotional primer more than it explains his personal situation. I, for one, feel for his parents as well as him. They are likely wracked by negative emotions from all sides- for the fact their son was so confused, the fact the he's dead, the fact the world blames them for his death.

We don't know what the boy struggled with aside from his confused gender. He may have been sick in other ways and that was the convenient excuse or explanation when he made the decision to off himself. Perhaps it was his reason. Without extra information, nobody can know.

Nevertheless, to exercise judgment on his parents with so little information is unfair. They deserve better than the potshots people like you are taking at them with so little information.

May Josh rest in peace. May their souls find comfort.
 
Nov 30, 2012
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#4
These poor parents. How long until people realize that acceptance does not mean love and that not to accept does not mean we do not love. Love forgives all things and does not hold anything against the person loved. These parents may not have accepted their son's confusion, but their love for him, from Christ through them, would not have changed at all.
 
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saved1

Guest
#5
This article uses Josh's death as an emotional primer more than it explains his personal situation. I, for one, feel for his parents as well as him. They are likely wracked by negative emotions from all sides- for the fact their son was so confused, the fact the he's dead, the fact the world blames them for his death.

We don't know what the boy struggled with aside from his confused gender. He may have been sick in other ways and that was the convenient excuse or explanation when he made the decision to off himself. Perhaps it was his reason. Without extra information, nobody can know.

Nevertheless, to exercise judgment on his parents with so little information is unfair. They deserve better than the potshots people like you are taking at them with so little information.

May Josh rest in peace. May their souls find comfort.
Everything I said about the parents came from Leelah herself. According to Leelah's suicide note her parents were her prime antagonists I didn't just pull that out of thin air. There is proof that the parents had much to do with the situation. I do empathize with the parents. It's saddenin to know that they won't get to see their beautiful daughter grow up to be the person she could've been
 

Desdichado

Senior Member
Feb 9, 2014
8,768
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#6
Everything I said about the parents came from Leelah herself. According to Leelah's suicide note her parents were her prime antagonists I didn't just pull that out of thin air. There is proof that the parents had much to do with the situation. I do empathize with the parents. It's saddenin to know that they won't get to see their beautiful daughter grow up to be the person she could've been
It's pretty typical of a teen to stretch the truth or embellish when it comes to parental treatment. I wouldn't be so quick to take him at his word.
 
Nov 30, 2012
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#7
It's pretty typical of a teen to stretch the truth or embellish when it comes to parental treatment. I wouldn't be so quick to take him at his word.
Real or imagined it was enough for Satan to gain a foothold. Don't just discount it. To do so is to make the victim the villain. This is not some suicide bomber, this is despair and absolute loss of sanity to kill oneself.
 

Desdichado

Senior Member
Feb 9, 2014
8,768
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#8
Real or imagined it was enough for Satan to gain a foothold. Don't just discount it. To do so is to make the victim the villain. This is not some suicide bomber, this is despair and absolute loss of sanity to kill oneself.
His account is hardly the whole story. I never said that made him a "villain." Don't be so quick on the draw with those Jesus jukes.
 
Nov 30, 2012
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#9
You're right I came off to quick on the attack. Just didn't want to start down the "let's attack the victim" road.
 

djness

Senior Member
May 16, 2014
502
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#10
I doubt it will come to that but who knows anything you doubt eventually happens.
I gotta say though I just can't fathom how difficult it is for someone at 4 years old to think they are the wrong sex and then have to tell your christian parents that?
What caused this to happen in the first place for this to happen? Was this a curse upon the christian parents to test their faith? Was this Gods goodness in action? I thought these things weren't supposed to happen in good God fearing christian homes.
Who is at fault for this kids death and most likely eternal damnation? { How could he be in heaven}?

Those are more of a concern to me than will some christian hypothetically lose their children.

Why did this ever happen??
 
Oct 30, 2014
1,150
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#11
CNN reported on the suicide death of "transgender" teen Josh "Leelah" Alcon.
They linked his suicide to his parent's religion. (See screenshot below.)

This leads me to a question.

Are we getting to a point where Christian parents could have their children taken away from them due to belief in a religion that supposedly drives parents to "abuse" their children by not accepting the "validity" of the "transgender" issue?

Will being a Christian parent be considered as dangerous as other destructive things like drinking or drug problems?

More stories like this will continue to link highly emotional situations like suicide to Christianity. Will this push people to demand removal of children from Christian parents?

View attachment 94636
The transgender life: What to know, say and understand - CNN.com
It will depend on the ferocity with which parents approach children whose lifestyle choices contradict their preferences. I prefer this to be looked at as a social and moral issue rather than a legal one, but there is certainly room for legal intervention if the rights of the child are being infringed by the parents. If the child is acting within its legal rights (which Josh was, at the age of sixteen) to choose his lifestyle so long as it did not infringe on another's rights, but the parents, for instance, kicked him out, they would be breaching their legal obligation to sustain the child until adulthood, and thus a court-case could be made.

The UN Convention on the Legal Rights of Children states that the government must respect a parent's right to raise a child as they please so long as the parents, in doing so, are respecting the legal rights of the child. Some of the further legal rights of a child are; the right to self-autonomy of thought, religion or no religion, and personal identity so long as it is not infringing on anyone else's rights; the right to a provided standard of living necessary for personal, religious, spiritual, moral and social development; and the right to protection from abuse, violence, exploitation, neglect and maltreatment.

It could be argued legally that by forbidding the boy to feel or think of his desire to be female that the parents are impeding his right to autonomy of thought and personal identity -- that they are effectively forbidding him to be what he identifies with even though his identification with being female does not in and of itself infringe upon any of the parents' legal rights. It would be fair, for instance, for the parents to deny the boy access to gender reassignment treatment until his legal age of consent, but it would not be fair for the parents to demand the boy stop identifying as female.

It also seems the mother misunderstood the boy's position when she said that the bible 'forbade his sexuality'. It is not an issue of sexuality, but an issue of gender. However, I can see how she misunderstood.

If we look at this another way, though, if he were homosexual. Again, it would be fair for the parent to deny the child bringing boyfriends to the house, but it would not be fair for the parent to demand the child stop being gay, as the child is perfectly within his legal rights to be so. His being attracted to men does not infringe on the rights of parents, because no parent has a right to force a child to be a certain sexuality or not be a certain sexuality, nor to have a child ''turn out just like we wanted him to''.
 
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notuptome

Senior Member
May 17, 2013
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#12
By the same standard there must have been mentors in his life that encouraged this behavior. If the parents are to blame then so are the other counter position advocates.

Children are an heritage from the Lord. The diabolical one destroyed this child not his parents.

For the cause of Christ
Roger
 

djness

Senior Member
May 16, 2014
502
13
18
#13
By the same standard there must have been mentors in his life that encouraged this behavior. If the parents are to blame then so are the other counter position advocates.

Children are an heritage from the Lord. The diabolical one destroyed this child not his parents.

For the cause of Christ
Roger
You would think christian parents would now what their kid was up to but maybe they were to busy being '' good christian parents'' to actually be good christian parents. That seems to be the way of most christian parents i know...pray for your kid, just don't actually interact with them and know what is going on with their lives.
 
Oct 30, 2014
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#14
By the same standard there must have been mentors in his life that encouraged this behavior. If the parents are to blame then so are the other counter position advocates.

Children are an heritage from the Lord. The diabolical one destroyed this child not his parents.

For the cause of Christ
Roger
Blame isn't productive in circumstances like these. I don't think pinning blame on the devil is pertinent either. The child died for real reasons. Attaching them to a personified representation of evil that nobody really likes to talk about and sweeping it under the rug does nothing to educate people about these things so they can do more to avoid instances like this in the future.

There's a saying ''Ignorance is the root of all injustice''. People need to be taught about these things and know that being transgender isn't just some fleeting teenage fanciful phase, it's a genuine medical-condition and it can have severe psychological implications if left unrecognized or suppressed; just look at the young man who has committed suicide because of it!

Being a teenager is damn hard enough without having everyone around you taking your deepest insecurity and poking it with the ''you're-just-having-a-little-phase-honey'' stick. Transgenderism is a real thing, and people need to recognize it as such.
 

Deadarm

Junior Member
Sep 22, 2009
12
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#15
No i think it won't end up that way. Thing is is when it comes to exposure to our faith people see stories like this and it makes us look bad. The media likes to zero in on the religious nuts and when they mess up Badda bing stories like this pop up
 

Angela53510

Senior Member
Jan 24, 2011
11,780
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#16
Talk about a "pro" transgendered article!

I am not against adults deciding to change their gender, as it is their choice, and they should be able to decide. Except for the fact that most transgenders end up unhappy they have permanently mutilated their bodies.
psychiatric morbidity [diseased state] than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria,not suffice as treatment for transsexual

Research I've found - Sex Change Regret

This teen in Stilly's article was depressed, and his parents rejection of his need to self identify as a woman. But my thought, is even if he wasn't transgendered, he might have taken his own life. Being a teen is a volatile time of life.

The interesting point is that most women threaten suicide but do not follow through. It is men that have the higher "success" rate in killing themselves. So this young teen, proved that he was more masculine than feminine. A woman would have talked it through with lots of people who likely would have talked them out of it.

Here are some good stats from the US government, which were not even touched on in that article.

http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/suicide_datasheet-a.pdf
 
K

kennethcadwell

Guest
#17
Here is the thing, if we are living in the last days which it sure looks like it then we have to be very careful at anything we do or say. As just being a Christian alone will be cause enough for persecution and even death. And if anybody thinks this will not happen in the U.S., it has already started on a small scale. With others rights being infringed on us, people getting arrested just for preaching on street corners, prayer not allowed in schools, and even school districts taking the words Christmas break out of the time off between Christmas and New Years.
The other things is that many politicians for the past 6 years have been trying to put Christians as a terrorist group, we are already labeled by some as domestic terrorists. I don't know if this will get to a full scale here though, because we have enough Christians to fight this. That and the only references of the U.S. in the bible show us as still a supporter of Israel. (Revelation 12)
I believe the U.S. does not follow the antichrist in the end times, because with how strong the U.S. is it would have been given more recognition in the bible. The only countries given major recognition though in my studies is the European union (revised holy Roman empire), Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Turkey, and possibly China (if not Muslim).
The U.S. is either destroyed or completely powerless by a WW3 that is also in biblical prophesy.
 

djness

Senior Member
May 16, 2014
502
13
18
#18
Here is the thing, if we are living in the last days which it sure looks like it then we have to be very careful at anything we do or say. As just being a Christian alone will be cause enough for persecution and even death. And if anybody thinks this will not happen in the U.S., it has already started on a small scale. With others rights being infringed on us, people getting arrested just for preaching on street corners, prayer not allowed in schools, and even school districts taking the words Christmas break out of the time off between Christmas and New Years.
The other things is that many politicians for the past 6 years have been trying to put Christians as a terrorist group, we are already labeled by some as domestic terrorists. I don't know if this will get to a full scale here though, because we have enough Christians to fight this. That and the only references of the U.S. in the bible show us as still a supporter of Israel. (Revelation 12)
I believe the U.S. does not follow the antichrist in the end times, because with how strong the U.S. is it would have been given more recognition in the bible. The only countries given major recognition though in my studies is the European union (revised holy Roman empire), Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Turkey, and possibly China (if not Muslim).
The U.S. is either destroyed or completely powerless by a WW3 that is also in biblical prophesy.
Just on a side note I have to laugh because here we have so many bible believers on this site saying America is the babylon of the end times and you seem to be saying otherwise.

Which one of you christians who understands the bible and is led by the spirit is actually right?

it sure would be helpful to know you all aren't under deception in this ...cause you know misinformation is of the devil not God right?
 
K

kennethcadwell

Guest
#19
Just on a side note I have to laugh because here we have so many bible believers on this site saying America is the babylon of the end times and you seem to be saying otherwise.

Which one of you christians who understands the bible and is led by the spirit is actually right?

it sure would be helpful to know you all aren't under deception in this ...cause you know misinformation is of the devil not God right?

[video=youtube;uY20IFaWlsQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY20IFaWlsQ[/video]

Watch this video as it shows how Saudi Arabia fits Babylon more than America does.
 
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psychomom

Guest
#20
think it's worth noting that though the US is a signatory of the UNCRC,
it hasn't been ratified.

which i pray doesn't happen, since a cursory glance at the US Constitution tells me
treaties become supreme law of the land...