Family of missing woman in Bahamas shielded trans identity over fears of bias

The family of Taylor Casey, a 42-year-old transgender woman who went missing in the Bahamas, said they initially shielded the media from her gender identity because they feared it would undermine efforts to find her.

Casey, who lives in Chicago, went missing on 19 June while on a month-long yoga retreat on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.

Her family has since worked to involve city, state and federal officials in the search for her – and said Bahamian officials left them with “more questions than answers”.

“The investigation would have been done properly” if Casey had been white and cisgender, Casey’s mother, Colette Seymore, told NBC News Chicago . “There would have been way more efforts” to find her, she said. “People would have been interviewed.”

Casey was reported missing on 20 June by staff at the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat on Paradise Island in the Bahamas, after she failed to come to the day’s workshops.

Family and friends called Casey “a fixture of Chicago’s transgender community and a beloved youth advocate” in a statement . They said they are “begging for support” to help bring her home.

“Taylor’s Blackness, Taylor’s transness and gender expansiveness, Taylor’s womanhood, all of these things are places where people experience disproportionate violence and being ignored,” Jacqueline Boyd, Casey’s close friend, told NBC News Chicago .

According to Transgender Europe’s Trans Murder Monitoring project , 321 transgender and gender diverse people were murdered between 2022 and 2023. Three-quarters (74%) were in Latin America or the Caribbean.

Seymore, Casey’s mother, traveled to the Bahamas about two weeks ago for answers. She said she was underwhelmed by officials’ response. Since then, she has worked to set up a GoFundMe page to help fund the costs of continuing the search. She has also enlisted help from the Chicago mayor’s office, and is seeking support from federal authorities.

“I share in his heartbreak for Taylor’s disappearance,” said Kennedy Bartley, a spokesperson for Chicago’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, at a press conference on Thursday, Casey’s birthday.

“We have the support of the mayor’s office and we will be calling on our federal delegation to do everything in our power to bring Taylor home,” she said. “Taylor’s family should be here today celebrating her birthday.”