Thankfully this child has been found safe and well now but if you were local to the area and read this appeal would you have been keeping your eyes out for a male or female child?

[WallaceinAnderland]

Liverpool Echo
Call 999 if you see this missing schoolgirl
She was last seen wearing her school uniform

Merseyside Police is appealing for the public's help in finding a teenager who vanished on Monday morning. Schoolgirl Emi Glover-Wade, 15, was last seen on Monday (January 2) morning and police say extensive enquiries are ongoing to find her.

Emi, from St Helens, was last seen wearing a school uniform, including a black blazer and grey jumper. She was also wearing a Linkin Park T-shirt, dark trousers and black Converse trainers with rainbow laces, police said.

The force described her as being around 5ft 3in tall, a slim build, with shoulder length hair and wears glasses for reading. Emi is understood to have links to Glasgow and Inverness.

If you see Emi call 999 immediately so police can make sure she’s safe and well.

There's no arguing with stupid.

Because all clothes are different
It’s perfectly normal to give a description of what a missing person is wearing so they can be picked out of a crowd.

You put it far better

And there we have it.

Because it's unusual for a clearly male child (by 'clearly' i mean that 99.9% of male children are clearly male rather than a comment on this particular child) to be wearing female-coded clothing like a pink hoodie etc. That's literally what would make him stand out to witnesses.

(i didn't look at description of clothing so 'pink hoodie' is a proxy for whatever he was wearing)

What do we have, exactly?

Is the answer, " You can change your clothes, but you can't change your sex"?

Anyone can change what they're wearing, put a coat over their outfit etc.

What no one can change is their sex.

I was just responding to PP mention of her DS being 6'2" , but did clock that 5'3" is pretty small for a 15 yr old boy. But my DS (14 ) has a couple of pretty small friends, but both still very obviously male.

I was 15 at the original height of Linkin Park’s popularity. My friends and I all wore band T-shirts, from punk rock to heavy metal and yes, Linkin Park too. About 80% of my male friends went through a long hair stage. Despite that, nobody was confusing girls and boys. We looked massively different.

If the one us went missing and the description was ‘a girl in a Linkin Park tee’ not a single person would have started searching for one of the long haired boys, or though to contact the authorities because they spotted a long haired boy wearing the named band T-shirt.

It’s so boring and disingenuous with the ‘I can’t possibly tell’ brigade and doesn’t make you them look enlightened, just like they are very obvious liars. We knew then. We know now. And knowing sex in situations like this can be the difference between life and death.

A t-shirt can be turned inside out or worn back to front. It’s negligent not give the most accurate possible description of any missing person. By coincidence I was thinking of this issue just yesterday morning, remembering the occasions when men have been described as women in their missing persons narratives under photographs of clearly, unambiguously middle aged men. It’s a dangerous practice.

Sex is important, binary and immutable irrespective of whether someone has a gender identity. Sex is relevant to a missing persons campaign as we have evolved as a species to recognise sex.

‘Going missing’ as a teen, indicates that the teen is struggling. Many teens with trans identities come to the trans identity in response to issues and experiences that make them vulnerable. Therefore when a teen with a trans identity goes missing, it is not a big leap to suspect that we are talking about a vulnerable young person who is struggling.

The job at hand is finding them and bringing them home safely. Consideration needs to be given to how best to do that.

Without knowing more about the issues in play, it seems sensible to refer to all characteristics that would help identification including both names and reference to having a trans identity.

The idea that using ‘deadnames’ and ‘wrong’ pronouns is harmful and dangerous is pernicious. Any harm arising comes from subjective interpretation. True advocacy would involve promoting resilience and limiting harms that might arise from ‘deadnames’ and pronouns used. How about ‘not everyone sees you the way you see yourself, and that’s ok’, or ‘some people don’t have an internal sense of gender, so they refer to sex, and that’s ok’.

I expect I diverge from lots of posters when I say that GCs should also have resilience and flexibility to understand that some people do refer to themselves in line with their gender identity and that’s ok too! I caveat this with however they define and describe themselves should not impact on how society should organise itself when it comes to single sex provision.

Brainworm i agree the focus should be getting the child back safe asap.

The other issue is that children dont have the financial resources to book a hotel etc and will normally run to someone.

If it is a childhood friend the searching police are not going to get a call about a girl with a new girl name when the parents of the house have a boy with his childhood name.

I don’t. And I’ve been campaigning against trans ideology for nearly ten years.

No i wouldn’t. I think that child is quite ambiguous looking. Some teenage girls could easily look like that. If I told this is a girl, I would assume they were a girl.

I don’t think I’ll ever stop being shocked at the number of people prepared to sacrifice any number of children as long as their ideology is fine. What on earth is wrong with a nice clear statement along the lines of Emi (also known as Keiron) is a boy who identifies as a girl then add the description. Then everyone knows who to look for. Glad he is home safe.

Surely the one time you do want a child to be 'othered' is when you want people to spot them in a crowd? Sharing any unusual or identifying characteristic is hugely helpful. People would remember seeing a transgirl, but from the description wouldn't know that was the child being searched for.