British Transport Police sued over new guidance allowing trans officers to strip-search woman

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Campaigners wrote to Chief Constable Lucy D’Orsi last month calling for the guidance to be axed on the basis that it breaches human rights.

Maya Forstater, the chief executive of gender-critical campaign group Sex Matters, called the guidance “state-sponsored sex discrimination and sexual abuse”.

However, the force has refused to remove the guidance, and a lengthy legal battle will soon commence.

Foraster has now said: “Sex Matters is seeking urgent permission for a judicial review to halt British Transport Police’s heinous practice of allowing male officers with a Gender Recognition Certificate to strip-search female detainees.

“We are bringing this case to ensure that no woman in the UK has to suffer this degrading treatment, and to protect female officers from being forced to search male suspects who decide to declare themselves ‘women’.”

In BTP jurisdiction, officers can search people of the same sex as “either their birth certificate or GRC”.

Those 18 and over who have lived in their acquired gender for more than two years can purchase a GRC for £5.

Cathy Larkman, a retired police superintendent and national policing lead for the Women’s Rights Network, said: “It will now either be established that British Transport Police has overreached themselves and permitted women’s human rights to be breached in the most heinous and undignified way, or that the law supports this outright intrusion on women’s bodies.”

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In January, similar guidance by the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) in January was withdrawn after public outcry, with the Conservative government raising concerns about women’s safety.

Due to this, the NPCC said it was conducting a thorough review of its guidance on searches conducted by transgender officers.