Police referring to missing trans children by gender identity and not sex

[ZombieKettle]

I won't go into too much detail as I don't want to cause distress to this young person and their family (and luckily they have now been found safe and well).

My post is more about making a wider point about how police deal with cases of missing children who identify as trans and the balance between respecting their gender identity but also needing to provide factual information that can help the public find the missing child.

I have seen a Facebook post by a police force about a missing child (now found) who was referred to with male pronouns. However, it was clear to me from the photo that the child was female. Tomboyish certainly, but my automatic response on seeing the photo even before I read the post was to recognise this as a female child due to their facial characteristics.

To put it bluntly, I saw the photo, thought 'poor girl' then read the post which referred to them as he/him.

Then when I read the comments, a person posted that the child was trans (girl to boy) and berated anyone for misgendering them in the comments. It looked like one person had done this accidentally, possibly because they too could instinctively see this was a female child.

So basically, despite this missing child (under 18) being biologically female and theoretically coming across as female to anyone who might encounter them (body shape, voice etc), this police force has referred to them as a teenage boy.

This really troubles me.

A police force would rather give out misleading information about a missing child than risk 'misgendering' them. I fear this could potentially have a detrimental impact on how missing children are found, putting the child at greater risk.

Has anyone else seen examples of this?

I saw the same post, and had the exact same reaction. Saw the picture and thought how sad it was that another teenage girl had gone missing, and hoped for her to be found swiftly. Only to be surprised when reading the article that the child was being referred to as male and as a teenage boy. Legally this child is female and appeared female despite the shorter hair style and unisex type clothes.

I suppose the police might be hesitant to correctly describe the child in case the child themselves sees the Facebook post themselves and becomes more distressed by references to their sex and therefore less likely to make contact?

Thank you, Roses, for posting. I suspect that might be the case - not wanting to cause the child distress.

But as you say, legally female and if they want the public to keep an eye out, how many members of the public might be looking for a boy only to see the teenage girl and think 'cant be them, police said it was a boy' and not report the sighting.

Similar situation could happen with the sex reversed (missing boy but referred to by police as she/her). I really fear for how this will impact on other missing children who are struggling with their gender identity.

We had something similar local to me although it was a young adult in that case. So many people were confused about whether they were looking for a male or female person, but would get shouted at in the comments if they asked.
Absolutely ridiculous.

It’s so ludicrous though - it's not in the child’s interest to to alert the public to a missing boy when the public will see a girl with short hair - it’s hampering the likelihood of bringing the child home safely.

Fair enough to say (making up an example as I go) ‘13 year old female who identifies as a transgender boy and is likely wearing stereotypical boys clothing’ rather than ‘13 year old girl’ but just outright stating the opposite sex to reality is madness.

sadly, lots (not all!) of the children who identify as trans are more vulnerable than average and are at risk of coming into contact with nefarious adults online, so the police are going to need to get a properly working policy on it before some poor kid gets harmed.

I remember a thread on here a couple of years ago discussing a similar case. The child's mother came on here and told us we were all bigots for misgendering her child. Apparently that was far worse than the child not being found because everyone was looking for a child of the opposite sex.

It’s somewhat less than the square root of sod-all use, isn’t it, in terms of actually helping find the missing individual? Much as when they describe someone wanted in connection with a crime as a woman because they’re wearing a frock 🤨

Here, though, there is that issue of needing to be sensitive to the missing individual’s sense of self & identity for [some level of] harm reduction - but they are failing to address the far greater potential harms by not providing an accurate description.

PPs have made good suggestions in minutes about how to balance making it clear a missing child is of one sex but identifies as the other - how is it seemingly beyond the abilities of the professionals to manage this?!

I have asked this question several times over the years. The first few hours are critical. Information should be accurate. The longer it takes to find a child or anyone really the worse the chances offinding them alive.

Its nothing short of stupidity to mislead the very people you rely on to help you find whoever is missing.

Thank god that child was found and is hopefully now safe.

Sex is a protected characteristic, isn't it?

And a person's sex is important in safeguarding terms. A person's sex puts them at greater or lesser risk of certain harms.

And as I'm sure OP & PPs have already said, biological sex is important in human recognition & identification.

I don't understand why people can't be "proud" of their trans identity, which necessitates correct identification of their biological sex. Sex is important.

It's hardly misleading if there's a picture of the child, that's what's the most important thing is for recognising them - please don't pretend the pronouns are going to make it harder to find the child, they're not.

Can you imagine the criticism on a police force if they said the missing person was a female yet the family would have specifically said they identify as a male. Most missing children have ran away, not been abducted, do you think the police misgendering them is going to give them the confidence to get in touch?

Yes exactly. The trans identity and presentation part is relevant information but the sex is crucial in a number of ways. A female child is probably going to look like a female child.

Can you imagine the criticism on a police force if they said the missing person was a female yet the family would have specifically said they identify as a male.

What's wrong with saying that they are female but identify as a boy?

I've seen this before (with a MTF child) and the description was about a girl wearing a bright pink wig going missing.

It was pretty obvious that the teenager would take off the wig, and be unrecognisable as a normal looking teenage boy.

This ideology is a child protection issue.

Yes, if you didn't want to be found you would just revert to sex type, like that male sex offender who was described as "a woman who may be dressed as a man" by police.

It's hardly misleading if there's a picture of the child, that's what's the most important thing is for recognising them - please don't pretend the pronouns are going to make it harder to find the child, they're not

Not everyone will see the picture straight away. They might hear about it on the radio first. If they hear something along the lines of " we are looking for a man in his mid 40s whos driving a red Mercedes with a 12 year old boy/girl wearing a blue hoodie amd black jeans" then discount the car they are behind at the petrol garage because thr child is not the sex they were told then that is indeed misleading.

The other issue though is the child themselves is likely to see any social media posts.

refer to that child in the “wrong” gender and it may trigger them into doing something stupid, or make them resistant to seeking help from
Police.

so what do you do? Probably the lower risk is to use their preferred gender so they know police will treat them how they want to be. Adults hopefully will see the SM posts and realise the trans issue, or at least be looking for that child in the picture.

these kids have many many issues, which tend to be focussed into the trans identity, and fighting against them on it won’t help in this situation.

It was misleading. The picture was very clearly of a female child. Yet the description was at total odds to the image. Leading to some genuine confused comments under the FB post. It would have been clearer to say that "James" is a missing female child who identifies as a boy, then continue with the rest of the information using the child's name and male pronouns if they are concerned the child might see the online post.

If there is a picture of the child then everyone reading it knows what they look like and will be able to identify them if they see them, regardless of gender/ sex they are referred to as.

If you have a photo of the person, gender/ sex is not really a piece of information that you need.

It's also a very difficult one for police to get right (or whoever made the poster). Some trans children have mental health issues based around their gender identity. Misgendering them on a missing poster which is then seen by the child, could actually be very damaging as well, so there are more complex safeguarding issues to consider here.

e.g. I could well imagine a scenario where the child has run away from home due to issues around gender identity - they then see a missing poster of themselves where they are misgendered - thinking the info was provided by their parents, who they have been having a lot of arguments with at home. This further impacts their mental health and makes them even less likely to approach someone who might be able to help/ return home.

These things are really not straightforward.

I suppose what could have helped is saying that the child is questioning their gender identity etc., but I do not agree that the child should have been described as female if he identifies as male.

Personally I wouldn't say there's anything wrong with that- if the police put that on a missing poster it would turn in to a battle about the police being transphobic- it would, they are criticised for anything and everything and in a world where there's already scrutiny on how the police treat minority groups this wouldn't go down well.

Not everyone will have a photo

better safe than sorry

They should have covered both bases - ie using he/him, but then also mention that they may identify as a female - its what the police did for a (wo)man hunt a couple of years ago.

A police force would rather give out misleading information about a missing child than risk 'misgendering' them. I fear this could potentially have a detrimental impact on how missing children are found, putting the child at greater risk

you are completely and utterly right

and its also dangerous not to warn people about criminals in the same way

The same has happened near me before. "Boy name is missing" with accompanying photo of a girl with short hair in school uniform. The uniform of the girls school in the town - as any local person would know. Cue lots of confused posts and then lots of others calling people bigots for pointing out the obvious. 🙄

We had the same problem in our area. I could tell the photo was of someone of the opposite sex. The police need to give their heads a wobble.

Given that the police now routinely describe male paedophiles, rapists and sex offenders as women, they're not going to change their stance for a missing child.

I completely appreciate the issue but until there's an agreement that on occasions, accurately sexing people is essential for reasons of safety then the needs of vulnerable children will be very low in the priorities. Nothing about this issue gets discussed with reference to all the complexities. It's not allowed. And children like this suffer.