It has been four weeks since yoga practitioner Taylor Casey’s disappearance, and the LGBTQ community in Chicago isn’t going anywhere so long as she is still missing. Casey, who turned 42 last week, was last seen on June 19 on a trip to the Bahamas for the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat on Paradise Island, connected by bridge to the city of Nassau.
Casey is a Black trans woman who has had 15 years of yoga practice under her belt. In the most recent press release on behalf of her search team, she was described as “a fixture of Chicago’s transgender community and a beloved youth advocate.” On Instagram, a friend reminisced about speaking with Casey on the phone regularly, teasing each other about how they are getting “old and dusty.”
During her time in Chicago, she went to barber school and frequently cut her friends’ hair, like longtime friend A.J. McClenon, a Black transmasculine artist who has lived in Chicago for 12 years.
Prior to leaving Chicago a year ago, Casey oftentimes danced at a local queer Chicago nightclub while wearing headphones, according to McClenon, who met Casey on the dancefloor of Chances Dances, the local queer party, in 2013—one year into living in the city.
Their Tumblr website describes the party as “monthly sister-parties for the LezBiGayTransIntersexQueer communities of Chicago—and the people who love them/us.” While McClenon recalls Casey wearing headphones on a dance floor to be quite funny, “she’s the kind of person who stands out in a room,” they said, adding that they had always admired her sense of self.
Here’s what we know about the disappearance
Two days into Casey’s yoga retreat, the Bahamas Royal Police Force distributed a missing persons flier. According to an NBC News report from last month on Casey’s disappearance, based on the succession of murders, robberies and gang crime in Nassau, the U.S. State Department increased its advisory level for those traveling to the Bahamas to Level 2, urging people to “exercise increased caution.”
Last Thursday, authorities in the Bahamas say they recovered an iPhone that potentially belonged to Casey, though they admitted on Monday that they still have not been able to access the contacts and contents of the phone.
Overall, the U.S. State Department urged everyone traveling to the Bahamas to “keep a low profile.”
When a friend texted McClenon about the news of Casey’s disappearance, McClenon tells Reckon that “it was really shocking,” especially given the backdrop of LGBTQ lives lost within the past few years amidst the anti-LGBTQ hostile landscape for community members nationwide.
“I’m moving through an intense amount of grief in this unknowing space,” McClenon continued. “And I just want her to not be hurting in any way.”
McClenon’s fear for Casey’s safety is deeper than the surface; Casey is transgender—a detail that wasn’t until disclosed to the public until last week by her mother.
How her trans identity was withheld from friends and family for safety reasons
Out of the 321 murders of transgender, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming people reported worldwide from Oct. 1, 2022, to Sept. 30, 2023, 74% were committed in Latin America and the Caribbean, as revealed in a study by LGBTQ advocacy group Transgender Europe.
Meanwhile, the study also revealed that 91% of the worldwide trans, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming murder victims happened to be trans women or feminine-presenting—a majority of whom were of color. In the Bahamas, particularly, consensual same-sex sexual activity is currently still partially banned.
When Casey’s mother, Colette Seymore, disclosed in a press release on July 9 that she her daughter is trans, she followed up with NBC News the following day that she withheld Casey’s trans identity for the sake of not taking the focus from simply finding a missing person.
“[Reports] were going to put the focus on ‘oh, Taylor’s transgender,’ which should not be the focus at all,” Seymore told NBC News on July 10. When asked if she thinks Casey would have been found sooner had she been white and cisgender, Seymore said, “Without a doubt. Without a doubt.”
Seymour isn’t the only one who believes race and gender plays part in dire situations like Casey’s. For Riana Lynn, racism in the wellness world is not particularly new. Lynn is a Black queer food entrepreneur and nutrition thought leader based in Evanston, Ill. Lynn’s connection to Casey’s story is intergenerational.
Lynn’s grandmother Gloria McCartney, known to many as Radha, was one of the first Black yoga teachers at the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat over 40 years ago—the same retreat Casey attended when she went missing. Although Lynn lives in Illinois, they grew up in Chicago after their grandmother migrated to the city in the 1950s.
“My heart immediately began to ache for Casey’s family,” Lynn said, recalling the news of Casey’s disappearance, reflecting on the community their grandmother had built down in Paradise Island.
“I don’t know what it is like today compared to when my grandmother was going there, but I do know that it’s very hard for a place like this not to galvanize more instantly,” they continued, speculating that perhaps it’s because of the wellness community’s proximity to whiteness.
They tell Reckon that they hope that this creates more of a level of standard of community care for thousands of women, specifically Black women, and more specifically Black LGBTQ women that go missing or murdered.
“I hope this can turn into a more of a replicable platform, and I hope that the family is able to gain some peace.”
The community will not let up until they get the answers they seek
Shortly after Casey was declared to have gone missing, community members in Chicago quickly organized to spread the word through the Instagram account @FindingTaylorCasey.
Last Thursday friends and family of Casey’s gathered for a press conference on Casey’s birthday, where Seymore choked up and cried at the microphone, surrounded by loved ones adorning #FindTaylorCasey shirts.
“When I cry, I cry so hard I have to hold my eyes in because I feel every blood vessel in them is going to burst,” Seymore said.
Seymore was accompanied by a longtime friend of Casey’s, Emily Williams, in which the two visited the Bahamas around a week after her disappearance in efforts to help move the case along.
“We went to the Bahamas to get answers; we left with more questions,” Williams said during the conference last week. “They want us to believe she left of her own volition.”
But despite what statistics on the murders of Black trans women, despite LGBTQ politics in the Bahamas, and despite the long journey the search for Casey has taken, her loved ones continue to remain vigilant in finding her.
For her birthday, the Finding Taylor Casey Instagram account made a post that read: “We believe that Taylor Casey is still alive and WILL be found. While we are grieving her disappearance, we are also celebrating her life. Happy birthday, Taylor.”
To support her search team, a fundraiser on Chuffed has raised $30,000 that has already helped get four individuals—including Casey’s mother—to travel to the Bahamas, secure an attorney and legal team as well as host a press conference.
Additional funds will contribute to mental health expenses, family support expenses, additional trips to the Bahamas as well as international and domestic campaigns and outreach.
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Publish date : 2024-07-18 01:38:00
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