# Good for you, CNN. (edit teen suicide/gender identity) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 2, 2015, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743 "2015-01-02T04:16:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/61 "2015-01-02T22:26:34Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > “Hi, I’m Sarah” works for me. The only thing I object to is insisting that choosing to live as a female _makes_ you female, and to referring to a deceased minor child who was male and named Joshua as “her” and “Leelah” against the wishes of his surviving kin. I don’t understand what you think ‘living as a female’ means. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/62 "2015-01-02T22:36:07Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > I don’t understand what you think ‘living as a female’ means. Dressing and grooming oneself in a feminine manner, presenting oneself as a female, and undergoing hormonal/surgical treatments to make one’s body more feminine than it naturally was. What else would it mean? ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/63 "2015-01-02T22:55:37Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > “Hi, I’m Sarah” works for me. The only thing I object to is insisting that choosing to live as a female _makes_ you female, and to referring to a deceased minor child who was male and named Joshua as “her” and “Leelah” against the wishes of his surviving kin. Did you see the post I made with the definition of gender? Living and identifying as female can exactly be the definition of being female. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/64 "2015-01-02T22:59:45Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > Did you see the post I made with the definition of gender? Living and identifying as female can exactly be the definition of being female. If you ignore the primary definition, sure. Biology is not defined by behavior. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/65 "2015-01-02T23:06:27Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > If you ignore the primary definition, sure. > > Biology is not defined by behavior. I think the conclusion here is you want to hold on to your POV and will ignore, dismiss or discredit anything anybody else says. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/66 "2015-01-02T23:20:40Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > I think the conclusion here is you want to hold on to your POV and will ignore, dismiss or discredit anything anybody else says. Has evidence been provided that one’s biological gender can be altered by thinking at it? I’ve not seen such a citation in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/67 "2015-01-02T23:24:07Z")
Smapti, would you call someone a unicorn if they said calling them a unicorn is the only thing that will prevent them from killing themselves? Or would you insist that you are right and refuse, and have no regrets when they do kill themselves? ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/68 "2015-01-02T23:27:33Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Smapti, would you call someone a unicorn if they said calling them a unicorn is the only thing that will prevent them from killing themselves? Or would you insist that you are right and refuse, and have no regrets when they do kill themselves? I would not call someone a unicorn unless they were demonstrably a horse with a horn and the ability to cure disease and identify virgins with a touch. It would be dishonest to do otherwise. I would feel bad if someone killed themselves because I told them they were not a unicorn, but I would not be the one who made the wrong choice in that scenario. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/69 "2015-01-02T23:28:30Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Has evidence been provided that one’s biological gender can be altered by thinking at it? I’ve not seen such a citation in this thread. That’s the dismissive attitude I’m talking about. These individuals don’t think to decide to be a different gender. They perceive themselves to be a different gender already and then think how to make the outside match how they already feel on the inside. All I know is that from my earliest memory I was told I was a girl and that felt right to me. I was tomboyish and science/mathy, but I had no doubts I was a girl. Imagine being told you’re a girl but every fiber of your being told you were a boy. You wanted to line up in the boys line at school and didn’t understand why you couldn’t use their bathroom. You weren’t a tomboyish girl, you knew you were a boy. Later you realized you could wear boys pants and cut your hair short and go from being Christine to Chris and all felt right at last. Now imagine being told over and over that what you felt inside was wrong, you were a girl and every instinct you had about yourself was wrong. You were taught to discredit every feeling you had about who you were. You really think these kids decide “I’m the wrong gender” and think real hard to make it so? Their brains have already told them who they are. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/70 "2015-01-02T23:34:15Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > That’s the dismissive attitude I’m talking about. These individuals don’t think to decide to be a different gender. They perceive themselves to be a different gender already and then think how to make the outside match how they already feel on the inside… > > You really think these kids decide “I’m the wrong gender” and think real hard to make it so? Their brains have already told them who they are. I acknowledge that there is a disconnect between what a transgendered person’s mind is telling them and what their body is. I’m saying that believing you’re of the other gender _doesn’t make it so_, no matter how sincerely you believe it or how deeply ingrained in your consciousness it is. A person who is born a man can never be a woman no matter how much they wish it to be true. They can only ever be a man living as a woman. This does _not_ in any way diminish their right to live as a woman to the extent that they are able to do so. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/71 "2015-01-03T00:17:30Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I would not call someone a unicorn unless they were demonstrably a horse with a horn and the ability to cure disease and identify virgins with a touch. It would be dishonest to do otherwise. > > I would feel bad if someone killed themselves because I told them they were not a unicorn, but I would not be the one who made the wrong choice in that scenario. Well I guess that answers that. Thank you for being honest in your reply ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/72 "2015-01-03T00:21:41Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I acknowledge that there is a disconnect between what a transgendered person’s mind is telling them and what their body is. I’m saying that believing you’re of the other gender _doesn’t make it so_, no matter how sincerely you believe it or how deeply ingrained in your consciousness it is. > > A person who is born a man can never be a woman no matter how much they wish it to be true. They can only ever be a man living as a woman. This does _not_ in any way diminish their right to live as a woman to the extent that they are able to do so. And most people contend that internal identity plus external anatomy come together to equal gender. The vast majority of the times it matches. But in those times it doesn’t, as evidenced by the profound suffering these individuals feel, internal identity is the more powerful driving force. You may think external anatomy is defining, but for the people who actually live with it that is not true. Your beliefs don’t get to trump the actual experiences of the people living with it. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/73 "2015-01-03T01:15:43Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Because that was his name. You don’t get to choose your name when you’re a teenager - your name is the name you were given when you were born. I’d no more be justified in insisting that the entire world refer to me as “Smapti” simply because I prefer it in certain contexts to my given name. So you’re a teenager?? > [@Smapti](#): > > What does her ID card say? What name is on her enrollment papers? What name will be on her diploma? _That_ is her name. She has the right to call herself whatever she wants, just like you and I have the right to call ourselves “Smapti” and “Ivory Tower Denizen”, but if either of us ends up on CNN we shouldn’t expect _them_ to call us that. Why the hell not? Seriously?! What-the-fuck-difference would it make to CNN what a person on their network chooses to be called? > [@Smapti](#): > > I said it wasn’t truthful to refer to him as female. It’s not _respectful_ to refer to him by his alias against his family’s wishes. So it’s not “respectful” to not honor the wishes of parents whose own disrespect for their daughter led, in part, to her suicide?? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/74 "2015-01-03T01:17:49Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Suppose you are a medical examiner and the body of an unfortunate young person in a similar situation to this one winds up a John Doe on your slab. How would you go about identifying them as female? There might well be personal effects along with the body that, despite a masculine skeletal structure, could indicate transgenderism. Feminine clothing and accessories, certain types of plastic surgery used to feminize facial features, possibly a set of breast implants… It wouldn’t be absolutely conclusive but could well indicate that this person, even if biologically male in some respects wasn’t a statistically normal person. > [@Smapti](#): > > In this case, “Sting” is a professional name, and I don’t fault the media for referring to him by it. But unless he changed his name when I wasn’t paying attention (and doing that _is_ much easier in the UK from what I’ve heard), he is and remains Gordon Sumner. If he ever ends up in a courtroom, or a jail cell, or a hospital bed, or somewhere worse, that’s the name that’s going to be on his documentation, not “Sting”. Really? Because it’s stupid easy to change your name in the US. I did it when I got married, didn’t even require a court appearance. People I know who did go via the courts say it was basially show up, give some reason or other you wanted the change (from “professional reasons - I want to make my stage name my legal name” to “I don’t like my last name, it sounds like an infection, I like this name better”) and as long as you didn’t have a criminal record _\>bang!\<_ it’s done. Well, yeah, you then have to change your ID, your bank account, and other stuff but really, a name change in the US is pretty easy. > [@Smapti](#): > > I don’t believe in saying things I know aren’t true to make people feel better, or not saying things that are true in order to save someone’s feelings. If the truth hurts, then one is obligated to work through the pain rather than find solace in a comforting lie. > [@Smapti](#): > > I don’t deny that he believed himself to be female. I deny that belief trumps biology. I’m a firm believer in harm reduction. Transexual people, at least the MtF variety (not so much research on FtM) have horribly high rates of suicide. If a little fiction could, conceivably, chop that in half then I say a little fiction is all to the good. (Note that I do not claim it drops the rate that much, I’ve yet to see decent research on the subject. If anyone has some people post a link.) I’ve never met a MtF transsexual either on line or in real life who had the delusion she was born with normal female genitals and sex organs. Maybe there are some that delusional, but I haven’t found them yet. They are _painfully_ aware of that fact. What they really want to be _socially female_, and that includes using the the pronouns appropriate to their identified gender. If it allows these people to function better then yes, we should do that. Your insistence on truth does not trump their right to maximize their ability to function as independent people. And, finally, I’d like to point out that we _don’t know_ if this person was intersex or not. If you’re willing to concede that someone with unusual chromosomes or ambiguous genitals might, in fact, be less than 100% one biological sex or the other than, barring solid evidence otherwise, you should keep in mind that this MIGHT be such a situation. We just don’t know, either way. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/75 "2015-01-03T01:24:23Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > “Hi, I’m Sarah” works for me. The only thing I object to is insisting that choosing to live as a female _makes_ you female, and to referring to a deceased minor child who was male and named Joshua as “her” and “Leelah” against the wishes of his surviving kin. But why is it so damned important to “get it right”? I mean, I disagree with you completely on this issue, but putting that aside, what’s with the stick up your butt about ‘telling the truth’ about this person? Have you ever read an obituary? Been to a funeral? People “lie” up down and sideways about the deceased; they’re always beloved, always missed, always have good relationships with their community and family. Heck, forget the deceased, human beings get along on a fundamental level by lying to each other all the time, about things that matter more to the person who wants the lie told than to the person who is complicit in telling it (“honey, do you think I look good,” being the obvious example). Why is it more important to you that the reporters get it “right” (which, to be clear, they did), than that they identify the deceased in a way that the deceased would like to be identified as? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/76 "2015-01-03T01:37:07Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Not much of one. Suffering from gender dysphoria doesn’t entitle you to renounce your legal name by fiat nor to demand that anyone and everyone, including people with power of attorney over you, call you by your preferred name. It’s not “demanding”, it’s asking. No one has to comply. And decent people will comply, because it costs nothing and supports another individual human being in their desire for happiness. People who are unwilling to comply (when they know about the desired pronoun and name) are jerks. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/77 "2015-01-03T01:38:46Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I don’t deny that he believed himself to be female. I deny that belief trumps biology. There’s a difference between biological sex and gender. They are not always the same things. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/78 "2015-01-03T02:08:18Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I don’t believe in saying things I know aren’t true to make people feel better, or not saying things that are true in order to save someone’s feelings. Yes, you do. You’re repeatedly demonstrated as much on the police-abuse and Big-Brother-surveillance threads, consistently taking the position that people should go along with the official pravda and refrain from speaking unpleasant truth in order to make people feel better about the government’s authority. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/79 "2015-01-03T03:10:18Z")
I hadn’t heard of this case but based on this thread alone, I’d cheerfully reference the deceased as female for no other reason than to spite Smapti. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743/80 "2015-01-03T03:18:47Z")
Actually, reading through the CNN article, it seems that they were being respectful of both positions, referring to “Josh” and “him” when reporting on the parents’ perspective and “Leelah” and “her” when reporting on the teen’s perspective. I am sure that extreme partisans on both sides can object to not having their views imposed on the story, but that actually seems more respectful of both parties than choosing sides. And it certainly stays with “facts” and “truth” better than imposing one view on the story. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-for-you-cnn-edit-teen-suicide-gender-identity/708743.md?page=5)