[LINK] "An Ohio transgender teen's suicide, a mother's anguish"

[rfmcdonald]

Towleroad linked to a distressing CNN interview with the mother of transgender Ohio teen Leelah Alcorn. From my reading, her statements seem to support her child's statements about a lack of support from parents and imposed social isolation. That his mother, at least, appears to have meant well makes the whole thing all the more distressing.

"We don't support that, religiously," Alcorn's mother told CNN on Wednesday, her voice breaking. "But we told him that we loved him unconditionally. We loved him no matter what. I loved my son. People need to know that I loved him. He was a good kid, a good boy."

Crossing out the name "Josh," the 17-year-old signed the name "Leelah" in a suicide note posted to Tumblr.

[. . .]

In her interview with CNN, Carla Alcorn referred to her child as her son and used male pronouns.

[. . .]

Carla Alcorn told CNN that her child was depressed and that counselors and a psychiatrist gave the teenager medication.

"He just quit talking about (being transgender)," she said.

She worried Wednesday that hateful messages directed toward her and her husband are making them out to be "horrible people," she said. She has other children, she said, and they are incredibly sad about losing a sibling.

Dan Savage suggested that the parents should be prosecuted for apparently driving their child to suicide. I don't know about that. I would hope that the pain Leelah's parents are suffering, knowing that their child whatever the eventual gender was no longer in the world at least in part because of their actions, would be sufficient deterrent. May they eventually find peace.