Male police officers can intimately search women. New guidance

[HandsOffMyRights]

Apologies if this has been posted, but I am sickened that new Police guidance (written by Stonewall obvs) enables male officers who ID as women to search women.

We are meant to be reassured that 'only' officers who ID as women can perform such searches. Apparently there's a lot of misunderstanding about this.

Clinton Blackburn (@SuptBlackburn) Tweeted:
Proud to be finally launching the National Trans Tool Kit. Developed in Association with PCC @DavidJMunro @policesupers @stonewalluk @NatTransPolice @ACCJulieCooke @LGBTpoliceuk bringing consistency across the UK t.co/zcuW18hd1E twitter.com/SuptBlackburn/status/1061971348526899200?s=17

Can a TRA please be clear about this: does a woman (should a woman) no longer legally have the right to refuse to be intimately touched and handled - in this situation possibly by force - by someone born male, in possession of a penis? Yes or no.

The TRAs on here will say you can refuse a transwoman HCP, but not on the basis that they are trans. So you can absolutely refuse them, but in real life, can't say why.

That's their most reasonable stance.

I've no idea how it works with the police, though. On what basis are you allowed to refuse to search? Other than it's someone of the opposite sex.

Why are police officers trying to rewrite laws? On whose authority are they doing that?

Aren't they supposed to be politically neutral?

And aren't they supposed to use their time to catch criminals?

''Removing clothing: police powers
A police officer can ask you to take off your coat, jacket or gloves.

The police might ask you to take off other clothes and anything you’re wearing for religious reasons - for example a veil or turban. If they do, they must take you somewhere out of public view.

If the officer wants to remove more than a jacket and gloves they must be the same sex as you.''

www.gov.uk/police-powers-to-stop-and-search-your-rights

Sex is a protected characteristic and is based on your biology, not your beliefs.

Datun not on the basis they are trans?

On the basis they are not female then?

Meanwhile, neighbouring Sussex police haven't much to do either.

www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/police-officer-labelled-an-embarrassment-for-telling-shops-to-use-genderneutral-signs-for-tampons-a3610916.html

This is very different from the HCP case though. Assuming capacity, as I understand it, everyone has the right to refuse treatment or ask for a different HCP for any reason we choose - it might not be easy to achieve but we have the right. So there is no law or NHS rule that particular roles have to ALWAYS be performed by a particular sex, it’s all down to patient consent.

That can not sensibly be the case for the police, so sex based rules are imposed.... and then ridden roughshod over.

The TRAs on here will say you can refuse a transwoman HCP, but not on the basis that they are trans.

However it's going to be perfectly obvious to everyone in the situation what's going on. The woman in the situation is also going to be under pressure/coercion to comply however she feels about it, and the threat of 'discrimination' or 'hate crime' may or may not be said out loud.

However police are obviously going to be in a very difficult position legally for a number of reasons if they try to compel a woman to accept a transwoman officer doing an intimate search, particularly if a woman for whatever reason makes it clear she does not accept the transwoman officer as female. Consent will often be a difficult issue: what percentage of women needing search in this way will be sober, mentally healthy and in a fit state to be judged able to give informed consent? No way this would pass the 'how will this look on the front page of the Sunday Papers?' test.

Any genuine transwoman officer is going to care more about the person in front of them than their right to do a search on an unwilling or distressed woman.

Bottom line: like smear tests, this is one small aspect of a multi faceted job that transwomen should not be sent to do.

Ooh Popchyck is that the same photographer Sophie Cook who was the only follower of young teenaged, brony Anonymous hacker Ashton Lucas David Challenor on Spreaker?

Interesting. Also interesting that Cook has unfollowed now-named Aimee Challenor on Spreaker since the matter of the rapist dad being employed in the Green Party.

Shame since Sophie Cook, Aimee and David Challenor all had a shared proud interest in photography.

I genuinely think that our institutions have set out to be sued by as many different parties as humanly possible.

I think the likes of TELI are trying to set up an unworkable system so that they profit from our institutions failing time after time.

And most of the institutions will settle out of court rather than risk the bad publicity of a court case.

And of course we are the ones that will be paying for this.

Datun not on the basis they are trans?

On the basis they are not female then?

Nope. That's transphobic.

They will grudgingly accept that you shouldn't be able to compel a woman to allow a man to touch her genitals. As long as you don't mention the word man.

The less reasonable will say no fuck off you bigot because they should be able to do the smear as their right.

I wish we had a button that says "report to the Daily Mail"

Can someone on Twitter tweet to @joaniwalshi

Datun given what you say, I don't know how to request that a male bodied person doesn't search me. Any tips for a non transphobic way of asserting my rights in this hypothetical situation?

Video for police re trans issues at work

Made by fox and owl. Everyone in video or production team is trans

I will personally volunteer to organise the crowd funder for the first woman this happens to.

Because unlike a few comments on a website, this absolutely would deserve a seriously robust legal challenge.

I like the idea of the protest mentioned earlier.

This is truly bloody awful.

Datun given what you say, I don't know how to request that a male bodied person doesn't search me. Any tips for a non transphobic way of asserting my rights in this hypothetical situation?

I can't think of any. All you can do is identify as a man, which as someone has already pointed out, would at least reduce your chance of getting frisked by a fetishist.

From the AIBU thread (where people are actually arguing that it's fine for the police to release official guidance on this because it'll probably never happen- presumably the people who write the guidance just make stuff up all the time and share it with the general public)

Do you honestly think that some man would actually go through the mind fuck of deciding to identify as a woman, as a police officer just to feel up women?

………. dear God, the naivety.

Under 18s strip searched in UK quite a bit

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37801760

recent case where it looks very much like woman was strip searched as punishment www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-45439954

2015 appalling behavior by met, woman was paid off

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/woman-wins-37000-payout-after-she-was-strip-searched-and-left-naked-by-met-police-10318929.html

Lets not forget that our police forces have been shown time and time again to havemasjor issues with institutional misogygy (and the rest) - I am in Met area so Warboys is the one that springs to mind, plenty of examples of other areas as well.

If men have a getaround to strip search women - it will be used.

A subsequent statement of female ID on the day in question renders an illegal and violating search, legal.

"On what basis are you allowed to refuse to search?"

You can't.
It's the police.
If you refuse they will hold you down and do it, and possibly you will be injured. You may face charges as well, I'd have thought.

Interviewee as I mentioned above I am a HCP and while I know it might not be the sort of situation you are thinking of we actually have very clear (NHS) policy regarding sex of staff performing searches on patients.

It states sex of staff who can search and who can observe, depending on the level of search (if clothing needs to be removed or not). Even for our most basic rub down search which we do multiple times a day the sex of the person searching must match the person being searched. They can be observed by a person of a different sex but consent should be sought from the patient. For any clothing removal both searcher and observer should be the same sex as the patient.

This policy is actually more lenient than some which say it must always be searcher and observer of the same sex.

Currently, we are being asked to ignore this or possibly to ignore how one patient identifies for the time taken to search them. I'm not really sure which. Technically they could complain about being searched by female staff (even though they've requested this) and I'm not sure we'd be able to do much.

Some of our male patients are sex offenders. They would probably prefer to be searched by female staff. If they request this on what grounds do we now refuse?

I am a member of the public and I am not reassured by the thought that a self-declared gender identity would be sufficient for a bepenised person to stick his fingers in my knickers

You’d have grounds to complain if a nonpenised officer put their fingers in your knickers. It’s not THAT intimate a search.

Maybe female police officers who will be expected to search fully intact trans women will protest.

It's also shit if trans men have to be searched by a man given that we think many have experienced sexual abuse.

There’s no way this would incentive pervy boundary violators to join the police. Nope.

The women at the sharp end of this misguided and foolish guidance will be police officers.

Women police officers have been let down by the the middle-aged men (mostly) who are supposed to look after their interests: the Police Federation and the Leaders of the Police Service. They will be the ones who will share spaces to undress and shower. They will be the ones that have to carry out the searches of the genital area and back passage. They will be the ones who face disciplinary sanctions for refusing.

Who speaks for them? Who consulted them? Where is the impact assessment?

Take care, folks - I've checked both tweet sources given at the start of this thread, and thought the Clinton Blackburn account is legitimate the "StevenCarrWork" one is essentially anonymous and is reporting a possible impact of these inclusion guidelines as though they are fact.

The documents say that forces need to consider how these guidelines will impact current stop and search and strip search guidelines, but doesn't actually give any direction other than they must comply with current Equality Act legislation.

So by all means, raise this. "StevenCarrWork" appears to be a bit of shit-stirrer though, going by the rest of his account.

Going by the actual guidelines, the only thing I am completely WTFing about is the separate warrant cards for "gender fluid" people who might have different personas for different days. I can't see that being a good idea in policing.