Trans women to be strip searched by male transport police after court ruling

17/04/2025

Trans women in British Transport Police custody will now be strip searched by male officers – not female – following Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling.

The force said it is introducing an “interim position” while it digests the Supreme Court’s decision that the definition of a “woman” under the Equality Act 2010 refers to “a biological woman and biological sex”.

A British Transport Police (BTP) Authority spokesman told Sky News: “Under previous policy, we had advised that someone with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) may be searched in accordance with their acquired sex.

“However, as an interim position while we digest today’s judgment, we have advised our officers that any same sex searches in custody are to be undertaken in accordance with the biological birth sex of the detainee.”

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In September last year, BTP, which is responsible for policing the UK’s railways and similar transport systems, published its “position” on transgender and non-binary officers carrying out strip searches.

It said officers would “only be able to search persons of the same sex on their birth or gender recognition certificate (GRC).

Officers who identified as another gender but who did not have a GRC were not allowed to, but if a trans woman had a certificate, they could strip search a female detainee.

Strip searches involve the removal of more than a jacket, outer coat, gloves, headwear and footwear.

They “expose buttocks, genitalia and (female) breasts”, the BTP guidance says.

The Sex Matters campaign applied for a judicial review of that guidance with the High Court in December.

It said the policy “puts detainees at risk of sexual harassment and sexual assault”, and said it was a violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects against torture and inhuman or degrading treatment.

Sex Matters said the policy “also puts female officers in a humiliating and dangerous position, as they may be pressured to search trans-identified men”.

One of the High Court judges who made Wednesday’s decision, Lord Hodge, said the ruling should not be read as “a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another”.

Government minister Karin Smyth told Sky News public bodies have been told to look at how equality laws are implemented following the ruling.

She said: “Obviously, public bodies have been asked to look at their own guidance.

“And we will do that very, very carefully.”

But she warned against public bodies making statements “that may alarm people”, telling them to take their time to look at their guidance.

Baroness Kishwer Falkner, chair of the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), said the ruling means there is “no confusion” now.

She said the NHS will “have to change” its 2019 policy, which says transgender patients are entitled to be accommodated on single-sex wards matching how they identify.

Written by: Pippa Taylor

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