And so it begins - males can no longer conduct intimate searches of women - Transport Police

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.gbnews.com/news/british-transport-police-strip-search-policy-supreme-court-ruling-trans-woman

'Trans officers within British Transport Police can no longer conduct intimate searches of women following a Supreme Court ruling, GB News can reveal.
Guidance to staff seen by this broadcaster said that, as an interim position, any "same sex searches are to be undertaken in accordance with the biological sex of the detainee."

Deputy Chief Constable Alistair Sutherland told BTP officers that the force would provide "further clarity" once it "had a chance to digest the judgment" handed down at the Supreme Court yesterday, which ruled that trans women are not legally women.'

Thanks for posting this @ArabellaScott

I'm impressed they have acted so fast and clearly - I hope others will follow suit.

Though I did find myself asking how often Transport Police are strip searching people?!?!?!?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce84054nqnyo

'The NHS will be pursued if it does not follow new guidance on single-sex spaces, the chairwoman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has said.
Along with other public bodies, the NHS will be receiving guidelines after the UK Supreme Court unanimously ruled a woman is defined by biological sex under equalities law.
"We've been speaking to the health service for an inordinately long time - we will now be asking them when they will be updating their advice," Baroness Falkner said.
Currently the NHS guidance says trans people should be accommodated according to the way they dress, their names and their pronouns. Under the ruling this would be scrapped.'

maybe the NHS news should go on another thread. Gosh, so much is happening, FWR's filing system is all over the place!

(This in response to loveyouradvice) Often enough that Sex Matters had recently started a campaign against it: https://sex-matters.org/posts/updates/judicial-review-of-police-search-policy-is-waiting-for-the-supreme-court-judgment/

Excellent. I was so distressed both for women who could be strip searched by men and women who were forced to strip search men. Both are wrong and clearly they would have lost the case Sex Matters were bringing. But much better they realise this of their own accord.

I REALLY hope the rape crisis centre that IamSarah is suing follow suit and settle.

Surely that should read ‘the biological sex of the detainee and the officer’?

Yes, that glaring omission jumped out at me too.

It is deeply shocking that it has taken this to reign in the incomprehensible position of the NHS, a medical body for goodness sake - a position which allowed them to decide a person’s sex, for the purpose of same sex wards, changing rooms, and even NHS records, simply on the basis of a person’s name, clothes or self declaration.

We were evidently lied to by anyone hitherto telling us there were same sex spaces where they were supposed to be. The law was being broken all over the place while objectors could be called bigots, or lose their jobs, or had to fund court cases running into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

I hope all of these changes are widely and loudly reported because then perhaps everyone will believe that it was indeed happening and happening a lot.

I’m in the police (Scotland) and currently it’s based on gender identity and they (person in custody) can asked to be searched by a person that matches said identify however the employee (me) can decline. I have made pretty loud noises if I’m ever in that situation I would decline. Female colleagues have searched, not strip as far as I’m aware, trans women but I wonder if they’ve done this as they think it’s compulsory. This part is glossed over pretty quickly in training.

I’m hoping after yesterday’s ruling it will be a blanket ban on searching the opposite sex. Also hoping if we can start recording crimes in sex now instead of gender identity, which is crazy as it is.

Edited for typos.

Thanks for this.

My biggest fear, from a personal point of view, about all this has not been prisons (highly unlikely I will go in one), changing rooms/toilets (I can walk out) etc, but the way the police are atm with all the rapists and paedophiles within their ranks has been strip searches. And medical professionals with their ability to refuse medical care. The two big areas ALL women feel extremely vulnerable in and both can override and overpower women to the point of incarceration or possible death. And that is fucking frightening.

I am astonished by all the pronouncements appearing, saying that yes, henceforth our organisation will use "women" to mean "women", not "women and some men", when they have spent several years now justifying their position of including men as women.

Just one ruling, that's all it took. Of course, that one ruling is a massive achievement, and I don't want to downplay it, plus I don't think we're there yet. There will be pushback, there will be challenges, certainly individual and possibly legal. But one ruling and they're backing down.

It may be because they thought so all along but were too intimidated by threats of law suits to dare to stand up to the Emperor tras Stonewall and past court judgements created.

@ScrollingLeaves It is deeply shocking that it has taken this to reign in the incomprehensible position of the NHS, a medical body for goodness sake - a position which allowed them to decide a person’s sex, for the purpose of same sex wards, changing rooms, and even NHS records, simply on the basis of a person’s name, clothes or self declaration.

I really wish that the war was won, but being one of the current mumsnetter auditors of NHS single sex policies I have read many that show GI to be deeply ingrained. I think it is going to be a long slow slog to get this poison out of the system. There is still work to be done.

@FarriersGirl absolutely - and even if policy is changed on paper, the culture of fear which prevents people speaking up also needs to be changed.

So what happens to all the women they know have been searched by a male in the past?

Will they be sent letters of apology for having their EXISTING rights violated?

Class action lawsuit against BTP incoming.

I think it’s because it was so clear and unanimous.

I heard this reported on the PM programme. The actual words were (and I went back to check)

”The transport police has now announced that transwomen in custody will now be searched by male officers”.

The BBC really is all about the men, isn’t it? I feel another complaint coming on.

R4 6pm news took exactly the same tack. No mention that, up till now, some men could search female prisoners. Or that female officers were expected to search intact men.

I don't believe class action is an English law thing. It's a us thing.

There were moves to encourage it recently but I’m not up to date on whether it caught on…

I had thought that the Post Office scandal was part of a class action. I did a search and found it described as a group action:
"A group action is a case where a number of claimants with similar claims get together to initiate an action against a single party. It is similar to a US class action." https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Post-Office-Horizon-scandal-explained-everything-you-need-to-know
though the Guardian did actually describe it as a class action:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/jun/20/royal-mail-class-action-bulk-mail

There are moves towards it in my specialist area of law (far from Equalities!) and a few tentative ones elsewhere. It could become a thing.

It's going to be interesting to see which organisations just roll over without even a whimper and which ones decide to go down fighting to their last breath.