“Transwomen should be able to strip search women if they have a GRC”

[SidewaysOtter]

Chris Philp, the policing minister says that transwomen should “only” be able to strip search women if they have a GRC: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trans-gender-police-officers-strip-search-id-xfvwsdjgn

On one hand, it stops the self-identified transwomen but NO man - and transwomen ARE biologically male - should be involved in the strip search of a woman. A GRC does not change their biological sex. And any transwoman who insists on a “right” to strip search women raises more red flags than a communist rally.

Mr Philip can be tweeted at @CPhilpOfficial, if anyone else wants to make their feelings known.

This is from the judgement below

Lord Bingham concluded:
“No one of that gender searched by such a person could reasonably object to the search.”

If people don’t want males to have the access to this the law needs to change

I have no gender identity so, as @FlirtsWithRhinos said, I share neither a sex nor a "gender" with a man, no matter what he calls himself. I hope never to be strip-searched in my life but...

I am an agender female. I share neither sex nor gender with a trans woman so there's no reason a trans woman is more appropriate to search me than any other male.

But legally you and the transwoman both are female in terms of sex and gender. The GRA alters both. Gender and sex generally mean the same thing in UK law, so you would be regarded as being female in terms of gender whether you like it or not.

You are entitled to think that the law is an ass, of course.

The law is indeed an ass in this regard

That talks about post operative transwomen indistinguishable from a biological female though, does that make a difference?

I would have said the same. However I was strip searched a bloody long time ago. Wrong pub, wrong time. All the women were strip searched.
Back when men were men. So two women police officers did it and they at least took us in one by one to a different room from all the men also being strip searched.

I'm now a lot more careful about what pubs I visit.

But it does show how easy it is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I never thought it would happen to me. I was shaking the whole time. I have no clue how it would have gone had it been two men doing the searching.

I was only playing pool with a friend. At lunchtime too.

Lord Bingham concluded:
“No one of that gender searched by such a person could reasonably object to the search.”

Lord Bingham was wrong.

It’s hard to know what the outcome would be as it would need to be tested in court but I have seen a view males should not be expected to go through extensive surgery or made to ‘pass’ to have similar rights to other GRC holders

Who would win in a case similar to the one below but with this difference idk

Yes

I wonder what Lord Bingham would say if his wife was strip searched by a man?

But legally you and the transwoman both are female in terms of sex and gender. The GRA alters both. Gender and sex generally mean the same thing in UK law, so you would be regarded as being female in terms of gender whether you like it or not.

Yes I think they would consider "agender" comes under the heading of "non binary" and without a gender identity you would be searched by someone of your "birth gender/sex" which would mean a male identifying as a woman (with a GRC if the law is followed) could search you.

That talks about post operative transwomen indistinguishable from a biological female though, does that make a difference?

That bit is about the position pre-GRA. I just thought I would include it because people might have some thoughts on the indistinguishability issue.

The other bit mentions the Gender Recognition Bill (which was going through Parliament at the time and became the GRA). It says that once the GRA comes into force then all a transwoman will need is a GRC to be able to carry out intimate searches on women. As you are probably aware, GRCs can be granted without surgery.

So the rights given to the hypothetical postoperative transwoman who is indistinguishable from an actual woman have to be extended to the ones who still have their male genitalia and look like Alex Drummond or Danielle Muscato?

Oh ok. People knew this and were fine with the GRA coming in

I think @AmateurNoun has it, it’s pretty depressing

Shocking. I can’t even write a good response. I just can’t believe it.

Ridiculous. Either follow the policy to the letter which means if you have a faegender non-binary pansexual you need an equivalent police officer to strip search them (good luck with policing under those conditions) or just admit it's about men having control over women and taking away women's rights.

non-binary - under gender rules- is a gender identity. Is the policy about ensuring the police officer has the same gender or not? If it is, any gender should count. Otherwise it's just a policy to allow any man who wants to get their hands on unconsenting female bodies.

MEN (XY humans) can decide their gender but that WOMEN (XX humans) do not get to decide their gender. I.e. women are afforded less protection in law and have fewer human rights.

Well, no, the law is notionally symmetrical. Women can decide to be men, but the effect of that would be to remove their protections.

The asymmetry arises because women gain protection from being apart from men, not vice versa.

If men choose to reclassify themselves as women, all women lose protection from those men.
If women choose to reclassify themselves as men, those women lose protection from all men.

The asymmetry is in what women stand to lose from saying sex doesn't matter, compared to men.

It's kind of a textbook case of "equality" not meaning "equity" - which is one of those things the sort of people into this stuff would normally go on about. Indeed, it's a far stronger case than most of their examples. Curious that they don't use it.

That's not true though because transmen aren't placed in the male estate most of the time. Again, the women's gender id is ignored.

And as far as I'm aware there's no 'non-binary' jail (which would be very, very full if it didn't have your ultra feminine Karen Whites and Isla Brysons in it if women WERE allowed to self ID gender).

People were fine with it back when the popular idea of trans people was based on Hayley from Coronation St and Jan Morris. They shouldn’t have been fine with it even then but, as Frood and others often point out so clearly on this board, women’s rights and feelings have forever been subservient to men’s whenever the two conflict.

I wonder what would happen if a trans man preferred to be searched by male officers? Would the male officers object? I would in their shoes as I’d have no desire to be up on a sex assault charge 2 years down the line. And if they did would it be a hate crime by the male officers?
or if a male prisoner objected to being searched by a trans man police officer?
would that be a hate crime too?
any policy has to presumably take these scenarios into consideration.
much better to have a sex based policy!

That's not true though because transmen aren't placed in the male estate most of the time. Again, the women's gender id is ignored.

I agree that in extremis they sometimes draw back from following through. But the women are still legally unprotected. A women with a GRC, under these rules, has no right to refuse a search from a male officer without a GRC, and no right to be sent to a women's prison rather than a men's one.

The only protection a woman with a GRC has is protection from males with GRCs, but that's (usually) less useful than protection from males without GRCs, just based on numbers.

No, no I wasnt fine with it. I saw the huge issues back then.
For the first time in my life I was moved enough to email my MP
Who a few weeks later sent a letter back, absolute screeds of just like gay men, I'm talking 12 pages here. So already he was being kind, to other men.
I saw a tiny report about the gra in some provincial paper. And that got me started on this whole crusade.
So as we're now in 2024 and I was aware in 2003. That's over 20 years of my life.
Of course I didn't have MN and i had no clue where to go for help until the last 10 years.
I'm just so glad i found this place (and the farms shhhh) otherwise I'd still think I was the only one that could see issues and it was a lonely time.

For the zillionth time on MN I think, this is exactly the sort of point I want to see directed towards politicians on Newsnight and similar outlets (Keir Starmer, Lisa Nandy?), but never seems to be.