Surrey Police and Crime Commissioner Lisa Townsend has blasted the latest guidance that allows trans officers to strip search women saying that it is “just not okay.”
The proposed policy from the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) would permit biological males who identify as female to conduct intimate body searches on women.
This would be allowed if the officer holds a Gender Recognition Certificate acknowledging their new gender.
“We wouldn’t think it was okay anywhere else and it’s not okay in policing,” Townsend fumed to GB News.
Lisa Townsend said that it is “not okay in policing”
GB NEWS
“I think there’s also another way of looking at this, which is it’s not just male officers and they are born male.
“We are talking about males being able to search women. It’s also the other way around. It’s also female officers potentially being told that they have to search a trans woman, i.e. a male who has been brought into custody.
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“That male could have been brought into custody because he himself has been violent, and he is insisting that he is a woman.
“And therefore, you know, there’s no time to check the gender recognition certificate. But that’s how he identifies.
“He insists on a female officer searching him. So I think we have to look at this from both sides.”
She added: “What I would say is that each Chief Constable is operationally independent within their own force, and I want to see forces push back against this.
Lisa Townsend said she wants to see some pushback
GB NEWS
“Chief constables need to think very carefully, just like PCCs do, about the constituents we serve. I want chief constables to think about the public they serve.
“A lot of work has gone in recent years, right across policing and across our country, to make women feel safer, both in the presence of police officers and in the presence of men more generally.
“I think it would be such a shame if we were to now go backwards on this in policing, because we’re ignoring what can be a very vulnerable group.”
Women’s rights groups have strongly criticised the proposed guidance.
Maya Forstater, chief executive of Sex Matters, said: “Paying £5 for a piece of paper from the government doesn’t turn a male police officer into a female one.”
“We regard this guidance as a serious breach of the fundamental rights of female detainees,” she added.
Former police officer Cathy Larkman, who has over 30 years’ experience, described the guidance as showing police leaders are “entirely captured by gender ideology.”
She said: “Their desperation to bring in opposite sex strip searching, despite all objections… verges on the fanatical.”
The policy will be considered by police chiefs next month.