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?

Yes, I think we need people in authority to make it clear that sometimes sex is an important thing to note.

I'm not going to agree that the police should pretend this child is the opposite sex, any more than I'd agree they call an anorexic a fat person.

Hell no

Seen similar. With a really blurred photo.

I say this is on Stonewall and friends. Without their propaganda, would it ever have occurred to these kids that someone who mentioned their sex was an enemy? There was noone, not one child in my large school who keeled over in horror at mention of their sex. This is a manufactured crisis, and Stonewall and Mermaids manufactured it.

Why mention sex or gender at all if it’s just further confusing the issue. There are many ways to neutralise it “Police are concerned about a missing 13 year old wearing jeans and red top - see recent photo”.

The idea that we can ask people to look for someone while we’re misleading on a very key bit of data is just irrational.

Yes. Manufactured crisis that only they can fix! Selling us both the problem and the solution.

I'd agree with @WalrusSubmarine - being neutral might actually help - some will 'see' a girl, some won't, or maybe they chatted to a kid in the boy's toilets or something.

I suppose nothing is better than the complete opposite but most humans will automatically go ‘missing child? Boy or girl?’

which is something that’s come up a few times recently, trying to remember where, Helen Joyce or Maya Forstater maybe?

rang true for me anyway, especially as I’m immersed in groups for parents of gender distressed teens - some use sex based language, some use gender based, so there is always a moment or two of sorting out whether the parent is talking about a male or female child, then the actual discussion continues.

Surely the obvious solution is to use their own language to try to be as clear as possible.

E.g. Have you seen James? James is a 14 year old transboy, assigned female at birth. He was last seen at x, wearing x, this is a recent photo. James may also be going by their birth name of Jamie.

Molten - I think then you get wailing and hair tearing about "outing a child as trans".
They can't win.