Harry Potter author criticises policy which allows biological males who identify as female to frisk female suspects

JK Rowling has criticised British Transport Police (BTP) for rules that allow transgender officers to strip-search women.

The Harry Potter author condemned the force for a social media post in which it urged users of the rail network to “speak out against violence against women and girls” and to report any incidents.

It used the slogan “it starts with men” to mark White Ribbon Day, a campaign that urges men to address the “root causes” of gender-based violence by examining their own actions and attitudes towards women.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Rowling asked the force if promoting the campaign was its “idea of humour” after it adopted a policy which she said “will allow individuals who started as men to strip-search females”.

The Telegraph revealed that guidance issued by BTP allows biological males identifying as female to carry out intimate searches of women, so long as they hold a gender recognition certificate (GRC).

The guidance states that officers can search people of the same sex as “either their birth certificate or GRC”.

After an outcry in January, the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) withdrew similar guidance permitting biological males identifying as female to intimately search women. However, the new BTP policy was authorised in September.

Cathy Larkman, a retired police superintendent and national policing lead for the Women’s Rights Network, has labelled the new BTP guidance “state-sanctioned sexual assault”.

The campaign group Sex Matters on Monday threatened the force with legal action, warning that for some women, being searched by a male was likely to be traumatic, regardless of whether or not they identified as female.

The group said the policy violated the human rights of women, amounted to discrimination against them and ran counter to legislation, requiring a constable to be of the same sex as the person they are searching.

“The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) provides that when a person is being searched the officer carrying out a search ‘shall be of the same sex as the person searched’,” Sex Matters said in a statement.

Women’s rights groups have criticised the BTP for allowing ‘state-sanctioned sexual assault’ Credit: Jacques Feeney/Getty

“The BTP policy interprets ‘same sex’ as relating to paperwork not to reality. Being searched by a trans-identifying man is likely to be no less traumatic than being searched by any other man, and this is not changed by a gender-recognition certificate.”

A person being searched can object to being searched by any officer, the BTP said after The Telegraph reported on the guidance last week.

A spokesman added: “An officer may only search as the sex indicated on their birth certificate or listed on their gender recognition certificate, whichever is more recent, when enacting a statutory power of search under compulsion.

“A person being searched can object to being searched by any officer; this officer will be replaced by another member of the team to conduct the search in their place.

“This is regularly done in practice for many reasons, such as a way to de-escalate conflict.”

BTP has been approached for a response to Rowling’s remarks.