British Transport Police face legal action on new guidelines which allows trans officers to strip search women.

Women’s rights activists have written a letter to police chief Lucy D’Orsi calling for the guidance to be withdrawn on the grounds that it violates human rights.

It indicates they are prepared to attempt to seek a judicial review of the guidelines.

Revealed by The Telegraph, these guidelines allow male staff who identify as female to intimately search for women provided they have a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC).

Backlash earlier in 2024 resulted in similar national policing directives temporarily removed after the Conservative government expressed concerns about women’s safety.

The guidelines state that officers can search for people of the same sex “either by their birth certificate or GRC” within the BTP jurisdiction.

Maya ForsterCEO of human rights charity Sex Matters, which wrote the letter, said the guidelines were “state-sponsored sex discrimination and sexual abuse”.

She added: “His guidance breaches the Human Rights Act, the Equality Act and PACE, the law which requires strip searches to only be carried out by a person of the same sex.

“Sexual abuse of power is the single most significant area of ​​corruption dealt with by the Independent Police Complaints Office and too many officers have been convicted of sexual offences.

“The police claim lessons have been learned and are now adopting a policy of sexual harassment and institutionalized abuse of women.

“Not only are women more likely to feel humiliated and vulnerable when naked, but men are also responsible for 98% of sex crimes.

“It is well documented in the medical literature that for many men, cross-dressing is a sexual fetish.

“No woman should be degraded by being forced to strip and bend over in front of a man. This is even more important when the man can manifest a sexual paraphilia.

Withdrew similar guidelines

After an outcry in January, the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) withdrew similar guidelines allowing biological males who identify as females to intimately search women.

The NPCC said it was conducting a thorough review of its guidelines on searches by transgender officers. “In the meantime, law enforcement has been advised to revert to its own policy on strip searches,” the agency said.

This policy has been implemented by the majority of police forces across the country, according to a report by the Women’s Rights Network (WRN).

Chris Philp, then Police Minister, said transgender officers should be arrested to conduct strip searches on suspects of the opposite sex unless they have changed their legal sex.

Sex Matters wrote the pre-claim letter, also known as the pre-action letter, as opposition mounted to the BTP policy.

Cathy Larkman, retired Police Commissioner and WRN National Policing Officer, said: “Sex Matters’ letter to the British Transport Police before taking action is a significant development in this sad story of policing. putting ideology and the unjustifiable self-interest of very few individuals ahead of the dignity, privacy and safety of women.

“Men are not women and men cannot become women. This also applies to police officers. A vulnerable woman subjected to a strip search is shown a man in front of her, regardless of the official £5 piece of paper he holds.

“The strip search, by its very nature, can be degrading and embarrassing, both for the woman being searched and for the police officer carrying out the search.

“When the state allows men to undress and touch women, that constitutes, in my opinion, state-sanctioned sexual assault. It is unimaginable that police leadership would view this as a carrot to dangle to attract more trans-identified men into the service.

The person can object to the search

A searched person can object to being searched by any officer, the BTP said.

A spokesperson added: “Which transgender people can be searched by transgender colleagues in British Transport Police is determined by an interaction between the legal framework of the Police Act and Criminal Evidence (1984), the Code of Practice on the exercise by agents of the powers to stop and search the person. in Scotland, 2017, and the Equality Act (2010), with the correct application of professional requirements, and not limited to the provisions of the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) (2004).

“Therefore, an officer may only search according to the sex indicated on their birth certificate or indicated on their gender recognition certificate, whichever is more recent, when promulgating a statutory power to search under duress.

“A searched person may object to being searched by any officer; this agent will be replaced by another member of the team to carry out the search in his place. This happens regularly in practice for many reasons, including to defuse conflict. »