My perspective, from a 16 year old semi-closeted gay Christian.

I have struggled with my identity for a while; I know that my religion is a choice but my sexuality is not and there have been frequent times where I've debated giving up my religion because I felt like there was no way both could work together. However, I do continue to choose to follow Christ because above all I believe in the underlying theme of all He has done; love. However, there are an overwhelming majority of Christians that judge and spread messages of hate that it's hard for people (especially not in the religion) to lump them all together as bigoted and ignorant.

I'm lucky enough to never relate to what Leelah went through, but I sympathize with being unaccepted in a community due to things that cannot be changed. She never asked to be a girl, she just WAS, and her parents were too clouded in their delusions to love her unconditionally. I don't believe they're terrible parents for denying her the transition, nor do I doubt that they loved their son. But their son, wasn't their son. No matter how badly they wanted her to be, no matter the memories of their baby boy, Leelah was always a girl. And nothing they did gave Leelah the impression that they loved her. When you are convinced, and you feel like you KNOW your parents don't love you, and you're isolated from your friends for so long, and when you return they don't seem like they care; I can't imagine anything worse.

I don't think the parents should be charged with child abuse. I don't think they deserve the public backlash for what they did. It may take some time, but they have to learn from this. I think everyone needs to learn from this. Nobody should ever feel scared to be who they are, and the sooner people can start to love again, the sooner LGBTQ+ youth stop killing themselves.