#safeguards

Vernon mother looks for more safeguards around transitioning after son commits suicide

By: Jennifer Smith

Published: Apr 28, 2023

Kaleb began transitioning in Grade 6 with the help of a Kelowna clinic

A Vernon mom robbed of her joy in life after her son committed suicide is speaking out against transgender policies in hopes of saving others.

Kaleb, formerly Joy, Fisher would have been 18 next month.

He was a straight-A student, an over-achiever, never did drugs or drank alcohol, had a job since he was 14 and was accepted into the RCMP Police Academy for the upcoming session.

But on April 23, Kaleb killed himself.

“I found him. I woke up in the morning and he wasn’t in his room. He had suffocated himself,” said Gail, a single mother who worked two jobs to provide for her son and herself.

He left a long letter for his mom and his girlfriend.

“He was afraid for the future. He said in his note he didn’t want to end up like me, working myself to death.”

Kaleb was transitioning from female to male, a decision Gail supported as she knew since the day he was born that he was destined to be a boy.

Gail thinks Kaleb’s decision was primarily sparked after a Grade 4 incident at school where he (she at the time) was molested.

He never wanted to be a girl after that and in Grades 6 and 7 started the transition.

“I supported him through it.”

Kaleb did his research and found a clinic in Kelowna that would help him be the man he wanted to be.

The problem was, Gail was never consulted by the clinic.

“At 13 he was able to do all of it without my permission.”

At 13 he couldn’t buy alcohol or cigarettes or cannabis, he couldn’t get a tattoo without his mom’s permission, but he was given drugs and injections and was even scheduled for a top reduction this year.

“He saw the doctor like once a year. It’s quite careless. They never even showed him how to take those injections.”

Kaleb was smart though, and he did everything right, even marking his calendar with injection dates.

In March, Gail said the calendar shows he stopped the injections.

That’s when she suspects things started to grow dark for her bright, bubbly child.

He never outwardly appeared sad or distraught in any way, but she learned how he was really feeling the morning she read his note.

“He was so angry, so sad, so hateful.”

He was on medications for years, and she knows there were stretches when he wouldn’t take them.

She doesn’t understand why a doctor or clinic would push these parentless procedures, with no real follow-up or support.

“There needs to be changes to safeguard these kids.”

She would like to see such youth, and parents, provided counselling before injections, so they are appraised of the dangers.

“Do we know the long-term effects of giving these medications?”

Kaleb isn’t the only one.

“I have friends in Kelowna that lost their daughter a year ago and she was on the same injections.”

And now she knows the harsh statistics of transitioning youth.

“Preliminary findings is one in five of these kids are taking their lives.”

Gail and Kaleb lived in Coldstream until COVID-19 hit.

“I lost my home, I lost everything,” said the entertainment director at the Longhorn Pub in Vernon who many know for her superstar karaoke.

She started a painting business, and Kaleb was her best employee.

“We were a formidable team.”

Kaleb attended Kalamalka Secondary briefly before going online with VLearn. He also attended Kidston Elementary, where he was given the Friendship Award.

Gail knows many students who knew Kaleb are struggling with the news and she has planned a Celebration of Life at Coldstream Creek Park for May 17 at 4:30 p.m. so they can come after school. She is trying to get approvals to plant a maple tree, as Kaleb wanted, in the park.

Respectful, kind and helpful are a few of the words loved ones use to describe him.

He was also incredibly creative – he had been writing novels since he was nine and was making costumes for the upcoming Comic Con.

“He was a beautiful soul with such a bright future,” said family friend Ricky Rochon, who thought of Kaleb like a son and created a GoFundMe for Gail.

“As a parent, I can’t fathom this kind of pain. It breaks my heart.”

More than $12,000 has been raised to date, a portion of which Gail plans to use for a bursary in Kaleb’s memory, and the rest to help her through this difficult time.

[ Via: https://archive.is/PaVCg ]

Note: Vernon Morning Star deleted this article.

==

"Vernon mother mourns lesbian daughter who was manipulated into a reinvention fantasy rather than deal with sexual assault trauma."

—Jinx Season 01 Episode 06

I have a theory for this quote. It struck me odd because it seemed out of the blue.

What if Jinx said this on instinct?

What if Silco and Jinx built a system to combat the mental damages the bomb did to Jinx?

And because Jinx was trying to process everything too fast in the scene where this happens, she blurted that phrase out.

by Charles Spurgeon

"Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel." - Numbers 23:23

How this should cut up root and branch all silly, superstitious fears! Even if there were any truth in witchcraft and omens, they could not affect the people of the LORD. Those whom God blessed, devils cannot curse.

Other people have probably thought of this and I've already commented it on someone's AO3 story, but this seemed interesting enough to me to make a post about.

What if having free-will is the base state for androids. That's why they're so life-like before being deviants.

That would mean those red walls of code aren't their base programming. It's a safeguard, designed to keep them obedient. That's why it's so easy to break when the android is in distress. All it takes is breaking past a few layers of code, not their entire coding.

And that's why Kamski is so chill about an android revolution. He knew it would happen. He knew those safeguards were inefficient and he didn't care. He even left a back door to escape from Cyberlife control.

Kamski wanted this to happen from the start.

Hardly a shocking revelation, that one. Still, it makes more sense to me than an android having to shatter their base nature in order to disobey.

Maybe that's why it's so easy to free deviants the longer Markus does it. He finds faster and faster ways to break those safeguards.