I don’t disagree about the sadness of her situation, but deceiving people is a pretty fucked up way of dealing with it. It just adds another incident onto the pile that makes people skeptical of sad stories on the internet. So many of them turn out to be bullshit or at least misrepresented that you being to cast a jaundiced eye on every tale of woe.
I expected something like this to happen with the crowdfunding craze at some point. I didn’t donate because I don’t think an internet presence is a good way of targeting charity. But it was charity - at least she was honest about that. She needed medical intervention that she couldn’t afford, and while she hustled the details… I don’t know. The campaign got kicked off indiegogo. There are a lot of ways to feel outrage about this, but I just can’t feel anything but sad about it. Nothing at all worked out for Chloe. Everything just went to shit.
Yikes. People going through the whole chaos surrounding gender reassignment are not at their most stable. If this becomes big news, it’ll just add to the pile of trans hate that everyone else in a similar situation has to go through. It’s kind of a vicious cycle.
Right but, again, it’s the use of deception to get what she needed, not the underlying tragedy that’s most unfortunate here. I’m sure she’s a troubled person, but how do we know this new story is true? You say she was honest about the charity part…how do you know that? People who scam will often have a back-up plan for if they get caught in the first lie (I have experience with these people).
I just don’t think we should be casual about people scamming others to get what they want…no matter what the sad story is.
This person obviously needs help.
This may seem controversial, but it is interesting to watch people attempt to tread lightly treating Transsexuals as a protected class. I think this plays right into the narcissistic behavior exhibited by the suicidal individual in this case. If the ‘deception’ was surgery for a nose job, would the empathy be the same?
If all that has been reported/stated is true, this person tried to bully others into not doing the right thing in revealing that pledgers were being ripped off - Threatening to suicide and claim they would be responsible, when they’re only mistake was being smart enough to perform due dilligence. That is not cool, regardless of the gender issues.
And in the end it sounds like that previous due diligence saved a life today. They should be congratulated.
Are you seriously equating gender reassignment surgery with a nose job?
Have you seen Sarah Jessica Parker lately??
On the scale of “life saving surgery”, uh yeah.
Standard practice, at least 10 years ago when I last taught human sexuality and had regular transsexual clients, was that folks seeking gender reassignment surgery required at least 2 years of psychotherapy & counseling prior to surgeries. In part, this was to distinguish folks who truly had gender identity disorder from those who had other psychological issues and were hoping gender reassignment might help.
I know nothing about the case in question, but it seems feasible that this individual, while stating that she was dissatisfied with her current gender, hadn’t yet gone through the psychological screening. Her deception around her situation, as well as her suicide attempt, is consistent with individuals with psychological disorders, and with screwed up people who are seeking attention for lots of reasons. I’d look to those explanations more than “folks with gender identity disorder be messed up.” Of course, she could have a whole host of psychological issues as well as gender identity disorder, but as far as I know, she wouldn’t be eligible for gender reassignment surgery (at the major recognized US gender reassignment centers) until she showed stability around her non-related issues.
I certainly hope she gets whatever help she needs, but that doesn’t make it okay for her to try and raise money under false circumstances.
Yep, it’s elective surgery, just much more expensive.
I get the feeling she didn’t want to succeed, because she told everybody she was about to self-terminate on live video. Not that it really matters, sincere attempt or not she’s clearly not right in the head.
From the guy who decided not to run the story on his news site: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1rk99tp
This Chloe person comes across as a pariah, despite the writer’s efforts to use only the most understanding and considerate of phrases. That is not a medical term, its just a type of person I (and I’m sure others in this forum) have had to deal with. They exist to take, believe they are only taking what they deserve, and quickly resort to lies, guilt trips, and feigned empathy when challenged. There is no meeting such a person half way, because they’ll just bemoan the other half. You can try to point out that there demands are unreasonable, and they’ll ask why you are joining all the other people who hate them, “I thought we were friends?”
Or, who knows. Maybe some Valium and time in the sun and this person would be as right as rain.
So - just to be clear - what you’re advocating here is that transgender people should NOT be treated as a protected class in the same way as those of a different race, creed, nationality, veteran status, age, gender of birth, familiar status or disability status? That - unlike those things - it should be permissable to actively discriminate against them?
Is that what you’re saying?
You know, maybe let’s drop the confrontational “oh no you didn’t” thing for a bit and think this through. A person who is transsexual is pretty much someone who is not comfortable in their own skin. They may feel strongly enough about this that they are willing to undergo extensive surgery to be transformed, to be externally the person they feel they are inside. A person in that frame of mind is probably going to be vulnerable and may not make the best decisions for themselves. I understand if the people who donated to the fund may feel a little cheated, feeling like this may not be the life-threatening condition they were led to believe it was. That’s for them to sort out, I didn’t throw any money in myself. But I can feel for Chloe even if I don’t understand her logic. It’s a dire chain of events that leads you to try to take your life, even if you are hoping in the back of your head that you won’t succeed. Why not cut her some slack?
She scammed her backers and blackmailed her peers with threats of suicide should they tell the truth. I think she’s getting plenty of slack.
Ah yes - so a few people are out some money, oh no wait, the Indiegogo was canceled and all contributions refunded. So she blackmailed some people with suicide and, uh oh, tried to follow through on that. Well, I certainly hope you weren’t one of the blackmail victims, blah!, but somehow I doubt you have cared too much either way. I get the feeling Chloe got the short end of the stick on this one. Not really seeing the slack she’s getting. I’ll keep looking though.
So you’re saying you’re fine with people scamming as long as they have reasons and they fail at it?
Yes charmtrap, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Nice job cutting through my smokescreen.
Well then, you obviously haven’t been paying too much attention. This story didn’t start and begin when you chimed in, it’s been going on for a while now, and many people have been accused and attacked over this while she sat back and let people believe things that weren’t true.
Mok was right, If she were just some random person that tried to con people into giving her money by faking an imminent death so she should get breast implants, lied to and blackmailed the people trying to help her, you wouldn’t give two shits about her. Yes, trying to kill yourself is sad and it deserves our empathy…but only to a certain extent, and it doesn’t excuse her actions leading up to the fact. Sorry, my empathy wanes in the face of all the shit she pulled leading up to this latest attempt.
You are having some other random conversation with an imaginary person and just happened to hit “reply” to my post, I’m thinking. Don’t let me get in the way of your bloviating, but first:
Agreed. I would not give two shits for a garden variety con artist, which you apparently think is what’s going on here. Hey, fair enough. You’re entitled to your opinion. You don’t seem to be too interested in the subtext to this story, the reasons why a person might have gone to the lengths that she did. Why should you? Who is she to you, right? Some ditzy chick who got in over her head and is paying the price. Justice is served.
Oh, that’s nice. So trying to kill yourself is sad. And deserves a little bit of our empathy, maybe, if we can be arsed to dispense any. But if not, don’t sweat it, because scam. I disagree with you here. It’s actually fairly key to the story that this is how things ended up. That there might be extenuating circumstances that, bear with me here, don’t actually excuse her actions but might, might help us understand them. If we wanted to take a minute to try. But who can be bothered these days right?
Wow, snark.
The problem with this situation isn’t the scam itself. I mean, in the larger scheme of things, who cares? The amount was relatively small, and although I find scamming money from people pretty low-down I’m sure she’s under a lot of strain.
I do find her willingness to prioritize saving her own skin over everyone else who can possibly be helped by crowdfunding for catastrophic illness and accident to be really very despicable. Every time one of these schemes gets caught out, it makes it harder for legitimate needs to get funded as people drop out of the funding pool. She may not be a garden variety con artist but she is a con artist, it’s just different people who will end up paying the price.