Mother of missing US trans woman criticises search efforts
Taylor Casey has been missing since 19 June (Find Taylor Casey on Instagraam)
The mother of a transgender woman who has been missing in the Bahamas for three weeks, says her daughter’s gender identity is having a negative effect on search efforts.
Taylor Casey, from Chicago, was last seen on 19 June on the plush Paradise Island, where she was attending a month-long yoga retreat.
She was declared missing after failing to turn up for a class at the Sivananda yoga ashram on 20 June and local police began a search operation. On 22 June, a dog picked up Casey’s scent and traced it to the water’s edge and two days later her mobile phone was found, but no one had been able to access its contents.
Casey’s mother, Colette Seymore, initially did not share with the media that her daughter is trans because she believed it could affect the search efforts and coverage.
“The focus was going to be taken off finding my child, and they were going to put the focus on: ‘Oh, Taylor’s transgender’, which should not be the focus at all,” she claimed.
“It should be the focus is finding Taylor, an American missing in the Bahamas.”
Casey’s family and friends believe she would have been found already if she was white and cisgender.
“There would have been way more efforts. The investigation would have been done properly, the way it should have been done,” Seymore insisted.
Casey was the only trans and only Black person taking part in the yoga retreat and she was “isolated” and “not integrated well into the programme”, friends claimed. In press releases, they said they were “not satisfied with how this investigation has been handled thus far” and feel there is an air of secrecy.
Speaking to NBC News, Casey’s close friend Jacqueline Boyd said she was unsure if her trans identity had played a part in her disappearance but added in recent years she had been living more openly and become more trusting.
“My perspective is that something not OK has happened to Taylor and there might be people [who] seemed trustworthy or who seemed not ill-intentioned but could have done harm to Taylor. We would have heard from her if there was any other option.”
Meanwhile, the chief superintendent of the Royal Bahamas Police Force – the man in charge of the investigation – has been placed on leave, raising questions about the integrity of the investigation, according to ABC Chicago. However, the force assured everyone that this would not hamper their work.
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