On Transgender Dignity and a Missing Transgender Tourist in the Bahamas
Is transphobia to blame for evident police indifference to her fate?
I was reviewing different news feeds yesterday and ran across a sad article about an American mother whose daughter went missing a month ago in the Bahamas. The daughter, Taylor Casey, was on a month-long yoga retreat.
Local police, friends and family have combined efforts to try and find Taylor, who was last seen on June 19. The local chief of police, however, has been relieved of duty and placed on unpaid leave, based on claims he failed to properly investigate Taylor’s disappearance.
Her mother, Colette Seymore, disclosed this past Monday that Taylor was a transgender woman. When asked why she withheld Taylor’s gender identity, the story quoted Colette as follows:
The focus was going to be taken off of finding my child, my child being missing and that they were going to put the focus on ‘oh, Taylor’s transgender,’ which should not be the focus at all,” said Casey’s mother, Colette Seymore, referring to the media. “It should be the focus is finding Taylor, an American, human being citizen that’s missing in the Bahamas.
The article went on to say:
