Society fosters negative transgender image

Linda Xu | Daily Trojan

Last month, 17-year-old Leelah Alcorn was killed by a semi-trailer in Ohio. What seemed like an accident was later confirmed as a suicide, as Alcorn had arranged for a suicide note to be automatically posted to her Tumblr page. She explained her depression was the result of gender identity. Alcorn, a transgender teen, was denied transitional surgery by her parents, which frustrated her and angered many. It is, however, ineffective to accuse her parents, as discrimination toward the transgender population is rooted in society.

Alcorn always felt as if she were a girl trapped in a boy’s body. At 14, she learned about being transgender and was able to accurately define herself. Her parents did not share the same sentiment. Doug and Carla Alcorn refused to accept their child’s desire for a gender change and insisted instead on sending Alcorn to Christian conversion therapy. Even after her daughter’s death, Carla Alcorn continued to refer to Alcorn as her “son” Joshua, and claims to never have heard the name “Leelah.” In an interview with CNN, Carla Alcorn said: “I loved my son. People need to know that I loved him. He was a good kid, a good boy” She added that she was scared of the public’s reaction and the revelations of her daughter. In her suicide note, Alcorn mentioned the lack of support from her parents, who repeatedly struck down her confidence in her newfound self. After apologizing to some people, she writes to her parents, “F-ck you. You can’t just control other people like that.”

After her note was published, the public portrayed Alcorn’s parents as people who killed their daughter. According to the Huffington Post, people responded, “Don’t say Leelah Alcorn’s suicide was selfish. Driving your kid to suicide because you’re scared of a ‘bad image,’ that’s selfish.” Another tweeter expressed, “Please do not have children if you are not prepared to love them for whoever they end up being.”  The media, however, has failed to understand that this problem does not stop at a set of close-minded, Christian parents.

Parental rejection of transsexualism should definitely be categorized as child neglect, though parents cannot be fully blamed. Responsible parents act on behalf of what they believe are their children’s best interests and in the process can act in ways that hurt. From this perspective, parents are not abusing their children but nurturing them in a way that is accepted by society. Parents who deny sex changes for their children hope to shield them from bullying, rejection and what society has defined as “wrong.” According to the American Civil Liberties Union, transgender people suffer many legal problems from health care barriers to identity documents that do not reflect their true sex. So, it makes sense that  parents believe that they are not abusing their children; they think they are helping their children avoid the obstacles a stigma creates.

Society is the culprit for transgender discrimination. When the Alcorns rejected Alcorn’s identity, it was because they did not want their child to grow up being denied of their rights. For example, last week, a woman was fired from Saks Fifth Avenue due to her transgender identity. This week, InTouch Weekly published a Photoshopped image of Bruce Jenner, making fun of the rumors of his sex change. These negative attitudes toward the transgender community have brought others to discourage sex change to save their loved ones from scorn. Furthermore, there are many conversion groups, from the Christian conversion therapy, to which Alcorn was sent, to “Gay Cure” camps that people have justified in the hopes of saving their loved ones from harassment.

Hopefully, transgender individuals become more accepted in the contemporary world, with less cases like Alcorn’s. To avoid these situations, Alcorn’s death cannot solely be blamed on the fact that her parents denied her a sex change. It has to be blamed on the environment that made her parents believe that being transgender is shameful. This is not a matter of incriminating parents. This is a matter of looking at our own prejudices on a larger scope. Changing the way we educate everyone to accept others despite their differences will decrease the rate of abuse and suicides. Discrimination drives people to abuse, which encompasses more than physical and sexual maltreatment. Though emotional abuse is found in Leelah Alcorn’s fight to define her own identity, it does not come from her parents. This abuse stems from society.