House of Lords- trans women police officer searches

I sent a copy of my email to the Minister to Claire Fox as she asked the original question and I got a lovely email back. I will send this on to her.

Well done. I was just wondering the other day whether you’d had a satisfactory response. That is very constructive.

That @ChazsBrilliantAttitude is a full.on wowser!!

Thanks for the update op

I said I’d update if I ever got a response from the Minister. I finally have and the change of tone is very interesting.

she replied that trans people had a right to exist
I'm so sick of this bs. Yes, they do have a right to exist. What they should not have the right to do is to bloody strip search people of the opposite sex.

Well of course that's a given. But hey, they actually have more rights than 'ordinary' men too!

There are also PACE rules about how the Police should deal with children. If men are allowed to search women, even if they "look like women" (according to Nicola1978x) then male officers taking advantage of this could also be guilty of child sexual abuse or of enabling child sexual abuse:

Scenario 1: Where a child (0-13) or young person (14-18) is incorrectly treated as an adult

"There are specific rules and responsibilities to observe when detaining a child or young person. Where no record of a person’s age is available on arrival in custody, for example if they refuse to provide this information or if they have no means of proving age, officers need to make a decision about whether they should treat the individual as a child/young person or as an adult."

Scenario 2: Where a child or young person's age is known:

Intimate and strip searches of children and young persons
Intimate search (physical examination of a person’s body orifices other than the mouth)

An intimate search of a child or young person may take place only in the presence of an appropriate adult of the same sex, unless the child/young person expressly asks for an appropriate adult of the opposite sex, who is readily available. The search may take place in the absence of the appropriate adult if the juvenile specifically requests this, provided the appropriate adult is present when the request is made and the adult agrees. The decision should be recorded and signed by the appropriate adult.

www.college.police.uk/app/detention-and-custody/detainee-care/children-and-young-persons

Thanks for that, @Datun - it makes it an awful lot easier to follow!

“Women have very little idea of how much men hate them" Germaine Greer.

What kind of mentality is at work to even consider this an option. Why does a male police officer HAVE to strip search a woman?

It really is quite foul when a man's demand for validation overrides women's consent to be touched by him - and it's utterly horrific when the police force and government agree.

As I said on another thread, anything, any single, bloody thing that might possibly, even if you look at it with one eye closed from a distance of a mile, be considered female only, is targeted.

I don't know - if someone has actually changed sex there is a good chance that they are actually a clown fish.

Surely a blanket ban on males searching females is the only pragmatic solution? Imagine the horror and revulsion of a SA survivor or devout woman on finding out they've been undressed and touched by a man (or even, that there's a policy in place that means this might have happened).

Passing or not, irrelevant. Any process for getting informed consent, or attempting a carve-out for specific vulnerabilities, is just going to be really intrusive for both the officer and the person being searched. So just don't do it.

Why is it so hard to understand?

Or straight people s

People see it as the same sort of reaction as homophobia

The biggest marketing coup in history was telling people that trans like being gay.

But it's lazy thinking. And the people spouting it never stopped to consider for one single second that legalising homosexuality didn't violate women's consent!

It's total nonsense isn't it? Not being able to strip search someone of the opposite sex isn't taking jobs or responsibility away from trans people. The entitlement these people have is astonishing. FFS.

The woman suggested it was state sanctioned sexual assault, and he basically said let's be clear about this transwomen are people and they deserve jobs and responsibilities.

A nonsense reply. And the exchange made him look utter a misogynistic creep. I can understand if he doesn't know what he's talking about. But just say can you please write to me about this and I'll discuss it with you. Not it's fine but you can write to me anyway

You can view them on Nitter

If you replace the X.com part with

nitter.poast.org/

copy and paste it into your browser, you get to see the whole thing.

It's not as instant as just clicking, but at least you can see what everyone else is talking about

This.

dear God. It's so fucking normalised isn't it.

whilst I accept that in many cases you might be able to recognise someone is transgender or cis

The issue here for women is that they are being searched by a male, not "transgender or cis". And yes, in most cases it would be extremely obvious which sex they were.

Simple question

Whose rights matter more? The rights of the person facing the potentially frightening and humiliating experience of an intimate search or the rights of the person doing the searching?

The police should only interfere with our rights to the extent necessary to perform their obligations to society. It is not necessary for proper policing that any officer has their identity validated in precedence to the rights of a person being searched.

Are you actually saying that the police should allow sexual assault by deception? Really?

I mean what does it matter if a female is violated if she might never know about it?

Giving me Monsieur Pelicot vibes here.

Should there be a common sense rule that there not allowed to search cis women?

firstly I agree cis is an offensive term.

but yes, biological men should not be searching biological women no matter how long the man’s hair is or how much lipstick he’s wearing. When we are talking about searches let’s be clear this isn’t an “empty your pockets” search. It’s a strip off in a prison cell search. I’m not 100% sure if police officers search body cavities if deemed necessary or do they get a medic in for that? But even a naked strip search is too far.

because either the male police officer is honest and tells the woman that even though he looks female he’s actually a man. Or he does it by deception and hope she doesn’t realise. Funnily enough people have been prosecuted for the latter. There was a case where a biological woman pretended to be a man and had a realationship with a straight woman inc sex (with the lights off). That woman went to prison.

The use of ‘cis’ as a descriptor of women is hateful and misogynistic. There is only one way to be a woman - that is an adult human female. Men identifying as women are just that - men.

I'm not sure if it's "common sense" but I certainly think it's common decency for a male person to seek informed consent before doing something like performing an intimate search on a woman.
And sexual assault to deceive them.