Police force to abandon 'Gender Neutral' headwear

[NancyDrawed]

Small steps....

Lancashire Police Force introduced baseball caps for officers six years ago

From the article:

The force is just the latest to axe baseball caps which have been likened to a 'Burger King' uniform by some critics who complained they made officers 'look like Jimmy Krankie'.

Northamptonshire Police paid more than £23,000 to introduce baseball caps after research suggested the new headwear would eradicate the issue of transgender officers having to decide between custodian helmets for males and bowler hats for females.

But two years later, Chief Constable Nick Adderley said they did not 'not portray the right image'.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11140003/Flat-hats-beat-police-force-ditches-baseball-caps-traditional-headwear.html

I wonder where the 'research' Northants used originated?

paid more than £23,000 to […] eradicate the issue of transgender officers having to decide between custodian helmets for males and bowler hats for females.

How many transgender officers did they have? It is truly beyond me how a cash strapped public service can still be wasting so much money on utterly frivolous irrationality.

If anyone says anything about this group the response is that it's such a small amount of people, what does it matter?
Then things are changed for everyone because they will be "more comfortable", it's just ridiculous pandering.

Surely a trans woman police officer would wear the women's helmet, and a trans man officer would wear the men's.

How many can there actually be though?

Why should male and female police officers be wearing different hats in the first place is the real question. I don't think this has much to do with trans people at all - a hat is a hat and it's archaic that male and female police officers have to wear different uniforms in the first place.

See, when is the average Joe going to see through this shit? I saw an article (possibly the mirror) that said it took an hour for the police to arrive at the scene if the shooting that killed that little 9yo girl Olivia, in Liverpool. Whether that's true or not, an hour. Yet there's money to spend on a piece of uniform designed to stave off offence from within.

Combined with the text messages sent between serving met officers and the contempt they clearly hold normal people in, when, when will we rise up and say no more?

That isn’t why Northants police introduced them at all. They were introduced because the old hats were cumbersome. They were then scrapped a few months later by the new Chief Constable Nick Adderley because the bump caps were incredibly unpopular with police officers and looked scruffy. Nothing more to it.

I would be, and am, more peeved that they turn up to investigate serious crimes driving a fucking clown car. Ffs.

I literally just watched the Harry Miller/Triggernometry interview.

the first part is about his recent arrest but then gets into general talk about police. The amount of money and resources going on to things that don''t serve the public is amazing.

I see no issue with peaked caps vs bowler hats, but the custodian helmet offers more protection than the equivalents issued to female officers.

And no, I don't want to see police officers wearing baseball caps. We've taken on quite enough of American culture already, thanks.

I don't love the increasing casualness of police uniforms in general, I think they give the wrong feel. Police officers shouldn't look like swat teams (unless they are.)

I'm happy with different hats for men and women, I don't think that men's hats often look to big on women's heads.

“Traditional flat caps will be issued to all male officers, with female officers given the option of wearing bowler hats which will include Lancashire Constabulary insignia.”

Flat caps? That’s Yorkshire not Lancashire, surely.

I agree with a previous poster, they should go with hats which offer more protection.

If male and female officers wear different hats (I don't understand why this is necessary?!), surely the simplest and cheapest option from the start should have been to say that any officer, male or female, could wear either type of hat. There's no reason why a female officer can't wear the type of hat used by the male officers and vice versa. Hats aren't sex-specific, unless there are sizing issues (which are sex-specific), but then just ask the supplier if they can make the same hat in a range of sizes to fit men and women's heads?

Why waste so much money switching to baseball caps and now wasting money again to ditch them!

The purpose of uniforms is so that both male and female staff are dressed the same, so why wear different hats?
Whether the decision is to go with hats that are more comfortable to wear for longer periods, or to go for hats that offer more protection - the type and design should be the same for both sexes. Just get the hats sized properly so there's ones that fit women's heads and men's heads.

And a trans person's head doesn't miraculously increase or decrease in circumference because they identify as something else. Bodies are sexed, and having the same uniform that comes in two different sizes to fit male and female bodies is a more sensible and cost effective approach IMO, than having different uniforms for men and women. It should have the added benefit of discouraging AGP tendencies as well.

They wear them in that bastion of inclusiveness Scotland .
I've always hated them. Very flimsy looking things.

In my experience male and female uniforms being identical doesn't work to make them look identical all that well. The main goal is to identify people as being part of the same group.

I was in the military for about a decade, and wore two uniforms there. Army combats, which were identical for men and women, and a dress uniform, which was not.

Because there were fairly baggy, it was possible to have the same combat uniform, but it didn't look the same, and it never looked as smart on women because typically it appeared to have a dropped shoulder, the collar would gape, and so on. This was not a practical issue and I doubt differentiating would have been useful, but the fact is that it didn't look especially identical.

The dress uniforms, which were more fitted, did come in men and women's styles, even when you didn't include the skirt. Most women could not easily fit into the men's trousers unless they were slim hipped, and the tunics and shirts would not have been easily interchangeable either. They did however make everyone look like they belonged to the same group - even when women wore a skirt or among those elements where there were different caps for men and women.

Hear, hear!

US policemen generally don't wear baseball caps as part of their uniform. How odd that you thought they did.

I can't understand why, if there are two versions of official uniform headgear (and indeed any other element of the uniform), both aren't available to male and female officers.

The issues you've described of clothing being baggy etc sounds like a case of male clothing being given to women to wear, which is not the same as both men and women having the same style / uniform but sized properly because of the differences in sexes.
A man and a woman can wear the same type of hat - but there will be two sizes since women's heads will be smaller than men's on average.
Similarly for shirts and trousers - style can be the same, but they should be tailored to fit male and female bodies respectively.

Yup.

It's happening across the board. Old people complained that police officers didn't look like they used to back in their day. So the old farts who are in charge of the Police have decide that is a good use of public money to spend another £50k on hats to make the old people happy again.

Perhaps they shouldn't have spent lots of public money on an unnecessary change to hats that made them look ridiculous and were unpopular then. Lesson learned, hopefully.

"Old people complained that police officers didn't look like they used to back in their day."

Receipts?

"So the old farts who are in charge of the Police have decide that is a good use of public money to spend another £50k on hats to make the old people happy again."

These the same old farts in charge of the Police who have decided that it is a good use of public money to paint police vehicles like clown cars - to make the old people happy??

Personally, I'll not be happy until the cars look like they used to back in the old days of Policeman Plod and Z-Cars. Who do I complain to, to snap my fingers and make it happen?

I agree, I think obviously gendered uniforms are weird (although there should be appropriate fit for both, not just a men's uniform).

Yes, the combat clothing is identical, right down to underpants. Which is fine, it makes some of the logistical issues simpler which has value in that setting.

My main point however was that men and women aren't going to look identical anyway, so making uniforms identical except for sizing is of limited value in terms of appearance. What looks good on women and men isn't necessarily the same either. The proportions on hats being a good example, it's not just that women have smaller heads, often they have smaller faces, and look better with a hat proportioned differently.

The only value of that kind is if you want to somehow assert that males and females will look the same or ought to look the same, which seems a little pointless. Men and women look different and that is fine. It's not like we are talking about giving the women uniforms that show their cleavage or something.

What looks good on women and men isn't necessarily the same either. The proportions on hats being a good example, it's not just that women have smaller heads, often they have smaller faces, and look better with a hat proportioned differently. FFS, is this really the priority issue - looking good?
For the police/fire/other services, there should be an appropriate uniform that protects and makes them easily recognisable. The uniform should not be gendered apart from fit for comfort and safety. It is not 1950.