Trans police officers to be allowed to strip-search women

Telegraph

24-02-2025

Police have revived plans to allow transgender officers to strip-search women.
Proposed guidance for the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC), the representative body for senior police officers, states that male staff identifying as female should be able to intimately search women, as long as they have a gender recognition certificate.
The NPCC withdrew similar guidance last year after the previous government raised concerns about women's safety, and said it was launching a 'thorough' review of the rules.
Adopting the guidance would bring the NPCC into line with the British Transport Police, which announced a similar policy in November.
Women's rights organisations said the guidance represented a 'serious breach of the fundamental rights of female detainees', and warned that senior police officers had 'forgotten about women, in their pursuit of ideology'.
It has now emerged that the council's ' diversity, equality and inclusion co-ordination committee' has agreed that transgender males with a certificate should be able to search female detainees.
Documents seen by The Telegraph state: 'The recommendation from the NPCC Lead for LGBTQ+ is that a trans officer searches a person consistent with the officer's sex as established by a gender recognition certificate [GRC].'
These proposals will be considered next month by the full NPCC before becoming official policy.
Applying for a GRC costs £5, and an applicant needs to have a signed statement from a doctor that they have gender dysphoria, meaning they feel they are born in the wrong body.
Last year, 68,874 strip-searches were conducted in police stations and 5,098 in other locations.
The proposed guidance states: 'It is important that employers treat people in accordance with their lived gender identity, whether or not they have a gender recognition certificate.'
It suggests that a trans officer without a GRC could be exempt from searching.
The policy states that if a detainee objects to being searched by a trans officer they may be substituted with a different officer.
But it adds: 'Consideration should also be given to the manner in which the detainee objects to the search and any prejudicial language should be dealt with positively.'
On Monday, the NPCC was unable to say what 'dealt with positively' meant.
But the previous, withdrawn, guidance stated: 'If the refusal is based on discriminatory views, consideration should be given for the incident to be recorded as a non-crime hate incident unless the circumstances amount to a recordable crime.'
While the guidance considers at length the welfare of trans detainees and officers, it does not specifically consider the impact on female detainees of being searched by a biologically male officer.
'Taken leave of their senses'
Cathy Larkman, a retired police superintendent and national policing lead for the Women's Rights Network, said senior police officers had been 'entirely captured by gender ideology and have taken leave of their senses'.
'The chief constables of the UK need to bear in mind that their role as police officers is to protect the public and enforce the law. It is not to act as agents of radical social change, and to attempt to stretch and even breach the law, particularly when this harms the rights of women and girls,' he said.
'Police leaders make a lot of noise about tackling violence against women and girls. Their words are hollow ones, as they are determined to subject women to opposite sex strip-searching despite all our objections.
'We have seen time and again the impact when it goes wrong, yet the police want to magnify this a hundred-fold by allowing opposite sex strip-searching.'
She added: 'I also feel for police women, who will be expected to strip-search men, some of whom will be deriving questionable pleasure from this. These policewomen will not be able to speak out, for fear of being disciplined and ultimately losing their jobs.
'The Police have forgotten about women, in their pursuit of ideology. They have become fanatics. It's unforgivable'.
Maya Forstater, chief executive of the women's rights group Sex Matters, said: 'The natural reaction to this new guidance on trans officers searching is: what can the NPCC possibly be thinking?
'Like British Transport Police, which Sex Matters is taking to court, NPCC is recommending to its council of chief constables that male officers with gender recognition certificates can search, including strip-search, female detainees.
'Paying £5 for a piece of paper from the Government doesn't turn a male police officer into a female one, any more than wearing a dress or putting on lipstick would. We regard this guidance as a serious breach of the fundamental rights of female detainees.'
A spokesman for the NPCC said: 'We have been conducting a review of the national guidance on custody searches carried out by transgender officers and employees.
'This review has been informed by colleagues across policing and partner organisations, community groups and associations and with extensive legal advice.
'Chief constables will be reviewing and discussing the proposed changes in the next few weeks.'
'Police forces are operationally independent and while this guidance will provide a framework for dealing with incidents, ultimately an assessment of each situation will be made locally to determine the most appropriate action, if any.'