Not sure where I stand on this. I warn my response is probably going to be controversial.
This is going to be long because I have some personal experience, some of the issues involved hit very close to home.
I was a very suicidal teen and, yes, with an extremely domineering religious fanatic of a mother and, yes, that had a lot to do with it. I was close friends with a boy from my church who wound up shooting up the school and I do think our church played a role. Will explain more in a bit.
My daughter is bi and I don't care. She is who she is. She also battles depression and is living with a trans-gender gf who I went from adoring to I hope she leaves this bitch's sorry ass. Again, I will explain more in a bit. I am pretty much willing to call anyone by whatever gender they choose to identify as regardless of age and status of transition surgery, if any. My daughter and I have both made suicide attempts, both in our 20's when our children were toddlers.
Those things said, I have to also say this (loud and clear):
AM I REALLY THE ONLY PERSON WHO THINKS TRANSITION SURGERY SHOULD HAVE TO WAIT 'TIL YOU'RE 18!!! AS SHOULD BOOB JOBS!!! Seriously, how is this sort of thing even being done on those still going through the bodily changes of puberty. My freaking boobs didn't even come in until I was 18!!! WTF? I can find fault with his/her parents but making him wait until he's a legal adult is not one of those things.
Am I also the only one seeing prejudice against all Christians, not just the fanatical, in the coverage of this event? We do not know how fanatical they were. They may have just had religious beliefs they held to. If we start telling people they can't raise their kids in their religion, we threaten all our religious freedom. It sounds to me that they were struggling with what was best for their child. If they were fanatics, I doubt they'd have struggled with it at all.
Also, there is so much more at play than just gender choice here, so many more issues and so much more going on with him/her than that alone. I hate, hate, hate the over-simplifying anything as complicated as suicide and blaming it on just one cause. Despite you may be able to call me on that a bit when I discuss my own suicidal tendencies as a teen. Depression is a very complicated disease and no one -- point blank no one -- is to blame for anyone else's suicide.
Remember I said that when I lay a lot of blame at my mother's feet. Still, while someone or several people may play a huge factor -- as is the case with the bullied -- ultimately, no one is to blame for anyone else's suicide. It is a mental illness that makes them deal with said awful situations that by taking their own life. Possibly, no one seems to think the terminally ill mentally ill for taking their own life. Yes, this is a double standard that bugs me when we talk about the terminally sad.
OK, let me get back to the personal things this stirs up. Yes, I was a very sucidal teen. My mother is literally very much like the mother on Stephen King's Carrie. The remake made me shudder even more than the original did because Julianne Moore nailed my mother's body language and expressions which Piper Laurie -- who I thought owned it until then -- did not. I had nightmares for day's after seeing the remake because Moore scared me so bad only because her acting was so utterly phenomenal that I have to wonder if she or the director or somebody guiding her acting knew someone as crazy as my mother.
So, yes, my mother was a huge part of why I was suicidal. But I easily come up with three factors contributing to my having to fight the urge to run a knife through my wrists every time I saw one and this is why I mention the boy who shot up the school: We were good friends because we shared these three factors: bullied at home, bullied at school, and bullied at church.
Our church was one of those hellfire and brimstone types, not the God is love type. I had my mother who I was never sure would NOT kill me because she literally did run around the house screaming thou shalt not suffer a witch to live (who the hell did King know like her, I swear he was spying on our household, I was skinny and shy and afraid of my own shadow in high school) and when I was little and confronted with the Bible story of Abraham and Isaac for the first time, I fearfully asked her if she would kill me if God asked her too.
Instead of saying the sensible, reassuring thing, she would answer don't worry, God would never ask me too. I asked her this constantly and could never get reassurance that she wouldn't just claims that God wouldn't ask. Strangely, I was not reassured. I was about 7 then. Also, I was the weakling of the family (possibly because my mother was very ill with bronchitis when she was pregnant with me) and got picked on by my 7 siblings and both parents were physically abusive as was my 2nd oldest sibling put in charge of us because she knew no other way than her fists to control us.
My friend would tell me how his father and two brothers would pick on him because they considered him rather a sissy. He particularly told how of when he was taken hunting (country folks, boys hunt at 12, no argument accepted) and couldn't shoot a deer how they pretty much tortured him for it verbally and teasing him with guns.
We were both bullied at school. Skinny, geeky kids painfully shy with no fashion sense and definitely not in the in-crowd. In fact, when he and I became friends, my sisters were how can you be friends with that weirdo and his brothers said the same about me.
So, yes, the above tri-facta played factors in our mental problems plus we were friends because of said mental problems and would share such stories and basically enabled each others feeling of what a lousy world. I turned it inward and was very suicidal (sometimes I'm still amazed I survived my teens and don't think I would have if not for a different boy that would talk to me for hours on end on the phone) and he, well, he tried to bury them or something until he snapped one fine day, and this boy who couldn't shoot a deer took his hunting rifle and 200 rounds of ammunition down to our high school and tried to take it over.
I had no clue he was going to do this. No one, I'm sure even himself, did. Fortunately, during evening activities instead of during the day and no one was hurt though he fired several rounds into the ceiling. This was 1975 in case you wonder why I get pissed when people say school shootings are something new. No, they're not. Research it. Wasn't even new in 1975.
Those anedotes are just for what it's worth. But, in every school shooting and in many of these suicide stories, I see the same tri-facta at play time after time after time: bullied at home, school and by a staunch, rigid hellfire and brim stone church. The answer to this? I have no idea unless we can become better at ending bullying and getting kids out of abusive homes.
OK, now to the other. As soon as I left home, got away from those bullies -- home, school and church -- though I hadn't given up religion (though I stopped believing and Jesus and eventually almost converted to Judaism; it was 10 year journey from Christianity to Atheism with stops at Judaism and Agnosticism along the way), the suicidal tendencies vanished overnight but resurfaced when I was in a bad marriage.
I was Agnostic throughout the bulk of my marriage, he was Baptist but not very extreme in it, even agreed with not baptizing the baby. But suicidal tendencies grew as his abusiveness did 'til I, with a crazy thought that my favorite sister would raise my daughter, took a bunch of sleeping pills just after her first birthday. I was 26. That attempt though scared it out of me and I'm glad it was 1984 because nowadays, they'd have locked me up. I was so scared I was going to die that I was begging the paramedics and then the ER doctor to save my life, which, of course, they were intent on doing. (Don't ever need your stomach pumped; it is not pleasant.)
They merely asked me if I were going to try it again, I said no way and was sent back home with my husband and young daughter. I never have tried it again. It's odd but I hit bottom then got strong and it was the wake-up call I needed. I divorced him not too much later (about six months) and got full custody of my daughter while still married actually at the advice of a day-care ironically in a church so see all Christians aren't bad. I shudder to think how much differently that would have gone down today with me being kept for observation for a week minimally and his maybe using it to get custody though not necessarily.
As I said, my daughter made an attempt when grandson was also a toddler. He was 2; she was 22. She was kept for a week and then released and only released then because she followed the program and because I was willing to let her come home with me. Her and his father had already split up and it was probably a factor.
She did not have the church factor as she was raised unchurched so that right there says you cannot over-simplify like that. Also, her mother was always accepting of her bi-sexuality so again, more complicated than that though I don't dismiss either as factors, obviously. I just say it's more complicated than that. She had a more difficult climb out of depression than I did but she now manages it and manages it very well.
Grandson was with his Dad for a short time then came home to his Mom. They have the standard these days: joint custody but she has full physical custody and he spends every other weekend and time each holiday at his Dad's.
I mention her trans-girlfriend (gone from male to female) only because I have learned a lot more about trans-gender issues because of having someone transgender so close. I never particularly understood transitioning but I shrugged and said to each their own. Sex changes exist and while I don't get it, people are going to do it and that's their business, not mine. I've always been able to respect whatever they choose to identify as.
I told her when I met her and meant this: I don't care about gender (including trans); all I care about is if you treat my daughter and grandson with love and respect. Treat them good; I will love you. Treat them bad; I will hate you. It seemed the first for the longest time and I adored her because she was loving towards them and respectful towards me.
But this all changed recently and there was a rather severe domestic violence incident with her. My grandson went between me and his Dad's and daughter was in a domestic violence shelter. I am not happy about this but daughter has returned to her after apologies and some reformation. Given my history, I admit that's because I can't trust such reformation given the severity of the incident. (She threatened not only my daughter's life but mine and that she was going to have her son taken away from her.)
There seem to have been two factors at play in this incident. One was that gf fell off the wagon and drinking played a part. She has also had bariatric surgery and did not realize how easily alcohol was absorbed in her smaller stomach and now says she knows she cannot drink at all. But another factor at play was gender identification which is apparently a mental issue sometimes with sex change surgeries.
There were some signs of this that daughter and I though we noted them did not know they were of serious concern but can lead to things like incidents of domestic violence. She was doing some pretty macho tripping things and also attempting to be head of household. Part of it is she has a giant brain (I do not exaggerate, she holds patents, jointly and invidually, I used to tease her about being a mad scientist, she is actually an engineer but she does invent some incredible things) and earns a great deal more than my retail worker daughter, about 10x as much actually.
But she'd talk like the stereotype of the man of the house saying things like I'm going to take care of you, wanting to be in charge of the money, treating my daughter like a stereotypical wife, telling her she doesn't have to work, and so on. Of course, unless she's to come down to the standard of living my daughter can afford, she does necessarily pay more of the bills.
But all these surface things are often an indication of gender identity issues. The domestic violence shelter has dealt with them often so it is not an unusual factor in domestic violence. I didn't even know it was a thing that existed so I share this for what it's worth in this discussion too. Also, if she doesn't take her hormones, I know that causes problems. Now she is not drinking and is making sure to take all meds but, of course, I'm less than accepting and am not happy my daughter has returned.
That, however, is my daughter's decision. If they remain together, I will eventually have to decide what my approach is going to be but this decidedly is because of the incident and not because she's trans. I have a slight problem with anyone threatening our lives, no matter what the cause of it is. That probably plays back to both my marriage (he once held a knife to my throat and told me they were going to find me dead in the street after I threw him out and began divorce proceedings) and growing up with a mother I was literally afraid would kill me.
Sorry this got so long. Just had too much to share on these issues. If you read all that, thank you.
If not, short version is: It's more complicated than just this boy identifying with being a girl and his parents having trouble accepting that. Just laying all the blame on them, therefore, is unreasonable.
It's sad, another sad consequence of our society today, misinformation, misunderstanding those that suffer things we can't begin to fully understand unless we are there and in their shoes
