These are thoughts I’ve mostly kept to myself because I have honestly no idea what should be done. But in our very sleepy county I’ve seen at least 3 missing children posters in the past couple of years shared by police. And it’s almost impossible to know who to look out for.
The last time I saw a missing poster for a child, it was of a teenager with a female name, a boys hair cut and an androgynous face. Described as wearing tracksuit and hoodie. No pronouns used throughout the poster.
Obviously, these children are extremely vulnerable and I doubt that a poster advertising “female teenager identifying as a boy currently in hiding” will help resolve any mental issues and make them want to come back to authority quickly.
I looked at the poster for a good 5 minutes trying to understand. Was this a boy identifying as a girl? Possibly. My awareness advised me I could guess they were a girl, identifying as non binary.
But the general public don’t have the capacity to study and rationalise.
I walked past a teenage boy yesterday, on reflection did they look like this?
A girl with short hair came into the corner shop I was in, I think it might have been her?