Thankyou London Transport

[viques]

Have announced that trans identifying officers who were born male will no longer be allowed to search female passengers. Pretty horrified that that was their previous policy to be fair, but at least they have changed it. First of many changes I hope.

The dominos are about to topple. I’ll be sitting in front of my news feed this weekend, glass of wine in hand enjoying the show.

I totally applaud them for acting so fast - but am shocked (though am I really?) that others haven't acted fast...

British Transport Police, I think, rather than London Transport, so it's s national.

They've said its an interim policy, so I'll not fully celebrate until the final version is announced, but I'm impressed by their speed of action.

Just think about all those HR policies that’ll need rewriting. Of course now you’ll get all those previously tight lipped saying “we always knew that a woman is an adult female human”. Duh! Even Labour came out and said that you only had to apply common sense to know that there are just two sexes (paraphrasing here), yeah, course you did Kier. Just like you know what a disabled person is.

Oh wait they're two faced liars.

Transgender detainees can request strip-searches are carried out by an officer they are “comfortable with”, even if this means abandoning the search and releasing them early, British Transport Police (BTP) officers have been told.

Campaigners claim the guidance, seen by The Times, in effect tells staff they must allow trans suspects to be searched by officers of the gender they identify as, if they request this.

They have accused BTP of not being honest with the public, as in response to last week’s Supreme Court judgment the force publicly rolled back a policy that allowed male officers who identified as women — providing they have a gender recognition certificate — to strip-search biological women. The policy also allowed trans women to be intimately searched by biologically female officers.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/39f8641b-aa25-4c0e-ae6c-a33d55e46824?shareToken=1005eb804ed9d14edc5091a66f4d9780005eb804ed9d14edc5091a66f4d9780

Surely the female officers can refuse. This must be illegal to expect them to search males. If male trans officers can't search women then surely female officers can't be made to search transwomen.

This.

This is where the fudging starts. Will it mean transwomen won't be searched at all to protect their 'rights'?

Another communication from BTP chiefs to officers, leaked to The Times, clarified that the guidance was making direct reference to trans people whose objection to being searched was based on their gender identity. This message added that if an officer was unclear about the course of action they should take in carrying out a strip-search in this circumstance, they should consider putting the detainee under constant surveillance rather than searching them or potentially releasing them early.

Or does it mean that there is discrimination against some men - men who identify as women can choose to be searched by a woman, but men who identify as men are denied the choice. (Ditto women obvs, but can’t think of any situation where a woman would opt to be searched by a man)