UK: Human Rights Charity Sues British Transport Police Over Policy Allowing Trans-Identified Males to Strip Search Women

By Genevieve Gluck
British Transport Police participating in diversity and anti-hate crime campaigns over the years.

A human rights charity is taking legal action against the British Transport Police (BTP) over a new guidance which allows men who claim a transgender status to strip search female detainees. The policy, implemented in September, permits male BTP staff to intimately search women on the condition that they have obtained a document which declares them to be legally female, known as a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC).

The charity behind the litigation, Sex Matters, works to “promote clarity about sex in law, policy, and language,” according to the organization’s mission statement, and contests that “people with beliefs about gender identity cannot impose them on others. A statement issued by the charity yesterday announced that Sex Matters had sent the BTP a letter detailing how the new guidance “is a breach of women’s rights and unlawful,” and asking that the policy be withdrawn.

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BTP’s Transgender and Non-Binary Search Position guidance was issued internally on September 30 and obtained by a Freedom of Information (FOI) request the following month. According to the guidance, staff are urged to treat the possession of a GRC as a condition which takes precedence over certain sex-based rights guaranteed under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE).

“Certain provisions in law explicitly state that searches and other procedures may only be carried out by, or in the presence of, persons of the same sex as the person subject to the search,” acknowledges the policy. However, it goes on to state that “in law, the sex of an individual is their sex as registered at birth unless they have been issued with a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) under the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA), in which case the person’s sex is their acquired sex.”

Additionally, BTP states that it “recognizes the status of Transgender and Non-Binary detainees/staff from the moment they identify in that gender with or without a GRC.”

The policy then sets out the two types of searches that are performed by officers and states that the guidance is applicable to both. “More Thorough Searches (Strip) in the context of searches involve the removal of more than, jacket, outer coat, gloves, headwear, and footwear. EIP Searches are searches that expose buttocks, genitalia, and (female) breasts.”

Regarding Strip and EIP searches, “BTP officers will only search persons of the same sex as either their Birth Certificate or GRC.” The BTP policy further states that “any information relating to a person’s GRC or original gender” is classified as “protected information,” and therefore staff are prohibited from disclosing the biological sex of an officer when it differs from the information provided on a GRC.

Sex Matters sent a pre-action letter to BTP Chief Constable Lucy D’Orsi on November 22 warning that the policy breached established law via PACE, which stipulates that strip searches must be conducted by an officer of the same sex as the detainee. The human rights charity proposed that BTP authorities respond by the end of the month on the matter in order to avoid a legal claim.

The pre-action letter asserts that it “may be humiliating and frightening for a women to be strip searched by a male officer,” and similarly, that “female officers would be likely to experience humiliation and degradation if required to carry out a strip search of a man.” Therefore, legal counsel for Sex Matters insisted that BTP withdraw the new guidance and confirm that strip searches will be “carried out on the basis of same biological sex only.”

Maya Forstater, the chief executive of Sex Matters, told Reduxx that the charity is requesting that the High Court determine whether BTP’s policy is lawful, given that it violates women’s right to be strip searched by an officer of the same sex.

“Sex Matters is asking the High Court to consider whether BTP’s policy is lawful, both in relation to female detainees being searched by trans-identifying male officers, and in relation to female officers being pressured into searching trans-identifying males,” Forstater said.

“In developing the case we interviewed several female officers who agreed to speak only under terms of anonymity. This illustrates the power imbalance and fear they feel.”

“Those officers described the risks, humiliation and lack of dignity involved in searches with a trans-identifying man. Only 22% of BTP officers are female, and most of those searched are male,” Forstater continued. “They explained that it would be very difficult for a female officer to object to searching a trans-identifying male detainee because she would fear being perceived as transphobic, weak or unprofessional.”

“They emphasized that custody sergeants have great authority and that it would be hard for a young female officer to refuse an order. If she did refuse the order, the search would simply be passed on to another woman.”

Forstater, who was subjected to an employment tribunal after her work contract was not renewed in 2019 due to her former employers claiming views she had expressed on social media were “offensive and exclusionary” in regards to gender identity ideology, was at the center of a court decision which found that beliefs critical of gender identity “must be tolerated in a pluralist society.”

“BTP is gaslighting both female detainees and female officers with its statement that when a trans-identifying man searches a woman, ‘the female is being searched by a female’, and with its denial of the role sexual fetish can play in cross-dressing and trans identification,” Forstater remarked.

“Rules that are supposed to protect women from humiliating and degrading situations are instead being used to subject them to abuses while denying that this is happening.”

As an example of a trans-identified male police officer who has influenced gender identity policies within the legal system, Sex Matters has previously highlighted the case of Skye Morden, an officer with the West Midlands Police.

Morden, director of activist group Trans in the City, has served as both a Police Constable and a Tactical Training Officer with a focus of creating policies for authorities that prioritize the “inclusion” of men who claim to be women.

In a previous statement issued to MP Chris Philip at the start of the year, Sex Matters pointed to two other trans-identified male police officers: Cherry O’Donnell, with East Herts Police, and Steph Calvert of the Border Force. The letter asserts that “misrecording the sex of any police officer is not compatible with implementing the policies that are needed to respect human rights, to maintain public trust and confidence, and to police professionally.”

Men who claim to be transgender have influenced policing policies in the United Kingdom, and a number of forces have previously come under fire for their support for trans-identified males.

As previously reported by Reduxx, Sussex Police once came out in defense of a transgender serial pedophile following “hateful” comments about his gender identity on social media. On September 26, 2022, Sussex Police issued a status update on the case of John Robert Dixon, who was sentenced to a minimum of 12 years in prison following a conviction on 30 charges related to the sexual abuse of multiple children.

Sussex Police referred to Dixon as a “woman” in their update, prompting backlash from women’s rights advocates. In response, the force issued a scolding reply to at least three X users in which they condemned “hateful comments” towards Dixon’s gender identity, and suggested a hate crime investigation may be opened into those who misgendered the pedophile.

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Genevieve Gluck
Genevieve Gluck
Genevieve is the Co-Founder of Reduxx, and the outlet's Chief Investigative Journalist with a focused interest in pornography, sexual predators, and fetish subcultures. She is the creator of the podcast Women's Voices, which features news commentary and interviews regarding women's rights.
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