Fair Cop Court of Appeal 8-10 March

thanks Clymene, I really appreciate it. Agree with you also about poor teenage/childhood mental health, camhs waiting lists were a joke before the pandemic, I dread to think what it's like trying to get into the system just now.

Sorry I missed that. You must feel very betrayed by that, I'm very sorry @outedbyfaircop

and the post on here linked to a facebook post I'd made on my personal facebook, which I'd set to public so that the description of my child could be circulated. lots of mutual friends of mine and the mner who shared it are aware that my child is trans. I am aware that lots of them identify as 'gender critical'. I didn't think they'd actually stoop as low as to mine it for clout though, but you live and learn. they're of the sort who are very 'oh I have nothing against normal trans people just living their lives, it's just the bad ones I don't like'.

Well, let's not assist anyone in fulfilling that aspiration!

It is so reassuring to see people having to lay out, not only the ideology but the sharp practices going on to unjustly punish people for their views. Without the usual route of trying (and coopting social media platforms and the police for god's sake) to shut down alternative views.

I think my favourite moment was when someone, in all earnestness, stated that you have your array of sexes. Your social sex, your passport sex. ..lost after that. And the judge 'I don't understand'. Not many reasonable people do, your honour!

I think we certainly had an illustration on why accusations have to be investigated as to their veracity before guilt is presumed.

You were referring to a specific child.

Please stop, you are likely to get this whole thread removed otherwise.

I assume your posts were removed because you misgendered the child, @Numicon, which is against MN Guidelines.

I'm as GC as they come but this is a parenting site, ffs. Just lay off please. Everyone.

And comparing a 17 year old to an 8 year old is a great analogy. What if the 8 year old identified as 17? Do we give him a motorbike??

I'm glad your child is home safely @outedbyfaircop and I hope their mental health has improved. Poor teenage mental health is a real scourge of our times

I'm a bit confused about how you think that Fair Cop got hold of the information that your child was biologically female? Are you saying that they obtained that information through deception or something? If the post on here didn't say they were trans, how did they find out?

This highlights the absurdity of people lying to their children about what sex they are....boys are boys and girls are girls, they are fantastic as they are. Feminine boys or butch girls, just fine. We don’t have to fit one mould.

How can correctly sexing a child be considered hateful?

Sigh. As i explained earlier. I did not post about my missing child on here. A close friend of mine did (BoF actually; in fact this time 2 years ago i was at her wedding, so hi to anyone on here who was there with me) she messaged me to say she’d put a post on here with his description on, and a link to the police’s posts about him, so that people would be looking for him countrywide. I immediately messaged her back and said that’s lovely of you but remove it please because this will happen. Then both of us emailed mn towers and the thread was deleted.

So you can stop picking holes in my parenting/argument re that. Especially since it turns out i was right.

I knew he had run away as he has done it before. The note he left saying ‘i have run away again’ was also a big clue. There’s always more going on than the police let on. For obvious reasons.

The police were aware of his trans status so if the image that haunts my nightmares, that a couple of you seem very keen to repeat and repeat with a little salacious thrill in your posts had happened, no delay and confusion would have occurred.

After two days of being on the run, my child had had enough and used his debit card to buy something, knowing it would trigger an alert to his dad. The police went and got him. Publicising his trans status would just have alerted all the local ‘people who don’t care how someone identifies when it comes to raping and murdering girls’ to the fact that a vulnerable female sexed child was out and about, and have given them an ‘in’ to approach him and groom him, as well as significantly reducing the likelihood that he would have done what he did and decided to come home.

I cannot believe i am having to argue with people about whether what this hate account did was wrong or not, you lot are really showing your arses over this.

Numicon you have had several posts deleted on this thread so stop acting so puzzled about how hateful you are. I thought the three strikes policy applied but obviously not in this case. So give yourself a pat on the back and feel good about it, mn obviously is right behind your transphobia.

I find it really insulting and a further demonstration of how parents of trans kids are treated on here by people asking me what prison i’d like my kid to go to, given that he hasn’t committed a crime, but i’ll answer it anyway. I would like him to go to whichever estate was best for his mental health at the time. Now before you all throw yourselves a hooray, gotcha party, let me explain something. It’s possible to treat two people in the same social category (boy) differently, because in the world outside of here, nuance exists. Let me demonstrate. I have two nephews, both are male, both are children. One has a motorbike and a girlfriend who he is sexually active with, the other doesn’t. This is because one is 17 and the other is 8. But they’re both children! Crazy right? Does this somehow render the meaning of the word ‘child’ invalid? No of course it doesn’t. Because out here in Nuance Land, people can be in the same class descriptor (in this case child) and yet still be subject to different rules depending on different circumstances. I don’t think we should kick 17 year olds out of the ‘child’ club because it protects them against grooming and exploitation at places like college and hobbies. They’re also shit at handling their drink. Yet somehow we manage to run a world where when different circumstances apply, so do different rules. I believe this is also possible for the people we call women and men. So that ‘if you think it’s Ok to call trans women women you’re automatically in favour of putting intact male rapists in women’s prisons’ won’t wash with me. It’s like saying ‘if you think 17 yr olds are legally children that means you’re in favour of toddlers joining the army’ ie fucking ridiculous, and makes zero sense in a world amply set up to accommodate nuance.

This is a vulnerable child ffs, not some prop in your anti-trans crusade. Disingenuous, we are pro women not anti trans

i agree with other posters that what we are seeing here are the dangerous consequences of validating some nebulous identity rather than trying to get a child to safety as soon as possible.

The child looked like a boy, identified as a boy, had a boys name and would doubtless of told anyone who came across him that he was a boy. As such, and given that misgendering him was likely to upset him and possibly make him less likely to come home, it is completely understandable why the parents and police took the decision they did. You had no right to override that and decide otherwise which resulted in hundreds of people tweeting about him and discussing his appearance online. This is a vulnerable child ffs, not some prop in your anti-trans crusade.

Thanks, ItsAll. A good point I hadn't considered.

I was thinking that it wouldn't be my first thought to post here and haven't ever seen any 'missing child' posts on MN.

Just out of interest, do parents post on MN about missing children, generally?

Supposing this runaway teen gets into some bother with the law, it happens, there but for the grace of god etc....which juvenile detention Center would @outedbyfaircop hope her child was sent to? Male, or female??

As is the fact that an atmosphere has been created here where a parent of a missing child dare not post for help or support on the world's largest parenting website solely because their child is trans.

Wrong

@Spero

Why not just say - a male child who presents as female or vice versa, then everyone has the information they need. I am sorry if this makes the child feel embarrassed or invalidated, but that cannot be the priority when a young child goes missing.

As the police are well aware child abduction by a stranger is thankfully incredible rare and if a young person goes missing it is usually because they have run away often due to bullying or a mental health crisis of some sort. They are far more likely to do harm to themselves in such a situation than be harmed by others. That is why thousands of adults 'embarrassing and invalidating' them on social media against the wishes of either parents or police to score a political point is so reprehensible. Fair Cop placed a vulnerable child at risk that day and that you appear unrepentent is deeply concerning.

As is the fact that an atmosphere has been created here where a parent of a missing child dare not post for help or support on the world's largest parenting website solely because their child is trans.

Top line was meant to be bolded.

Numicon is doing a great job demonstrating why trans people need protection from hate speech

And @outedbyfaircop is doing a great job of showing why we need protection of free speech. Where have I written anything hateful? Show me.

The truth can never become taboo. Humans don't change sex, pretending otherwise is ok on a personal level, but not when womens sex based rights, free speech, and children's safety comes into it.