New guidance from the UK’s police chief association has said that transgender officers born as male must be allowed to strip-search women, and could result in a non-crime hate incident if the women complain.
The guidelines, issued by the National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC), were first presented in December last year, and were highlighted by the Mail on Sunday last week.
“Chief Officers are advised to recognise the status of Transgender colleagues from the moment they transition, considered to be, the point at which they present in the gender with which they identify,” they note. “Thus, once a transgender colleague has transitioned, they will search persons of the same gender as their own lived gender.”
While the guidance does say that it may be “advisable” for another police officer to strip-search the detainee if they object, the refusal could be recorded as a “non-crime hate incident” if their refusal is “based on discriminatory views,” such as believing that transgender women are not real women.
In fact, the document goes onto note that if a non-crime hate incident does occur because of a “transphobic” response from a detainee, the transgender police officer should be given support from police resources, not the uncomfortable detainee.
Superintendent Cathy Larkman, who recently retired after over 30 years service in the police, told the Mail on Sunday that when she discovered the guidelines, she was left “absolutely gobsmacked,” and that the more she read it, the more shocked she was.
“This is a devastating blow to women’s trust in the police,” Larkman argued. “Women are not even an afterthought in this guidance; they are completely non-existent. Everything is geared towards the sensitivities of the officer doing the searching.”
She further criticised the guidelines for forcing any objection to come from the detainee themselves.
“If an individual is nervous before authority or they are overawed by the circumstances or if there is any issue with vulnerability whatsoever, to put the emphasis on them to object is quite astonishing,” she added.
Larkman also raised the issue of biologically female police officers who may have to search transgender women, pointing out that these officers “will be under a lot of pressure to just go along with it and keep quiet because they could be disciplined for refusing.”
In response, a spokesman for the NPCC said that all searches are dealt with “on a case-by-case basis after consideration by a custody sergeant based on the response of the detainee,” and that when conducting searches they take into account their “responsibilities” resulting from the Equalities Act 2010, which made transgenderism a protected characteristic.
The protection of the “rights” of transgender individuals in opposition to biological women has faced immense scrutiny in recent weeks in the UK. One case made recent headlines where an NHS hospital told police a woman couldn’t have been raped, as no “males” were present, given the suspect was transgender.
Valiant News reported last week that Boris Johnson argued that transgender women should not compete in female sports, and that it’s not “reasonable” for “kids” to make “decisions about their gender or irreversible treatments that they may have,” referring to the increasing adolescent use of puberty blockers to stall, delay or reverse normal puberty.
