Update from Helen
Helen Joyce and Dr Emma Hilton, chair of Sex Matters, with former police officer Cathy Larkman
Like everyone who opposes trans ideology, I would imagine, I sometimes still boggle at its depraved consequences. Among these have been policies saying that if a male police officer identifies as a woman, or has a piece of paper from the government saying he is a woman, then he is a suitable person to carry out a strip-search on a female detainee. That was the policy of nearly every police force in the UK until the Supreme Court judgment of April 2025, despite it being obvious to anyone with an ounce of common sense and compassion that a woman’s already traumatic experience of being strip-searched would be made a thousand times worse if the person doing it was a man. How he identifies is irrelevant.
We have all repeated the facts a thousand times by now. Nearly all sexual criminals are men. Nearly all their victims are women. “Trans women” – men who say they are women – aren’t magically less prone to such crimes than other men; indeed prison figures suggest that they may be more prone. Some are motivated to cross-dress by a fetish; policies that treat them as women are sexually exciting for them. And of course allowing trans-identifying male officers to strip-search women would enable serious human-rights abuses against vulnerable women. That proponents of doing so claimed to be motivated by human rights was sickening.
In late 2024 Sex Matters started a legal challenge against British Transport Police over an opposite-sex searching policy, which was settled after the Supreme Court judgment led to it being withdrawn. And yet so determined are the gender ideologues to enable opposite-sex strip-searching that they have tried again, this time with guidance written by the National Police Chiefs’ Council, a talking shop that produces model policies for police forces. This says that a detainee who declares a trans identity can “request” to be searched by someone of the opposite sex. If such a person can be found, the cross-sex search can proceed on the basis of “consent”.
Perhaps this guidance seems less awful than saying trans-identifying men can search women (that is a low bar). But it is still an outrage. Valid consent cannot possibly be obtained from someone who is under arrest. The NPCC’s claim that officers who refuse to carry out opposite-sex searches will experience no detriment to their careers is wilfully naive.
You don’t have to be overly cynical to see that the opportunity to expose themselves in front of female officers will be seized upon by many male detainees, whether because they find exposing themselves arousing, because they like humiliating and frightening women or because they dislike the police and want to cause as much trouble as they can.
We think the killer legal argument is that the guidance is in direct contravention of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE), which sets out in great detail how police searching must be carried out. PACE leaves no wiggle room for opposite-sex searching – none at all.
And so Sex Matters has taken a new challenge against this NPCC guidance. I will be attending the hearing in the High Court on Tuesday 16th June, together with my colleagues Maya Forstater and Fiona McAnena, retired officer Cathy Larkman of Women’s Rights Network and a representative of the Police SEEN network.
We have set up a crowdfunder and published our court papers, which include witness statements from Cathy and Maya. Cathy’s is filled with insights from her more than 30 years as a serving officer; Maya’s includes dozens of quotes from serving police officers explaining why opposite-sex searching is so harmful and dangerous.
I carried out some of the research cited in Maya’s statement, in particular the interviews of those officers. Like most people, I have never been arrested or spent any time in a custody suite; hearing about this particularly fraught part of their job increased my respect and admiration for them and made me even more enraged that police leaders are so determined to push through this dangerous and disgusting policy.
I urge you to read what they had to say – and, if you agree that cross-sex strip-searching must not be allowed under any circumstances, please consider supporting our legal case.
Helen Joyce
Find out more:
Media coverage:
Both The Telegraph (Daniel Martin) and the Daily Mail (Sam Merriman) covered our judicial review of the NPCC guidance. They quoted current and retired police officers who told us that female officers will feel under immense pressure to carry out searches on male detainees despite not wanting to, and their fear that a man directed to manipulate his private parts by a female officer could experience this as arousing.
Child gender medicine: CAN-SG conference
In this week’s episode of the Sex Matters podcast, Fiona McAnena talks to Dr Louise Irvine, co-chair of the Clinical Advisory Network on Sex and Gender (CAN-SG), about Rethinking Youth Gender Medicine, on Sunday 5th and Monday 6th July in London. The conference will feature world experts discussing the social and clinical care of gender-distressed children and young people. Whether you’re a clinician, educator, parent, researcher, or simply concerned about child safeguarding and ideology distorting medical practice, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss.
CAN-SG has offered Sex Matters’ supporters an exclusive discount: use the code SM25 for 25 percent off all ticket prices. Further discounts are available for people on low incomes, and students can attend the full two days for just £20.
Our challenge to City’s unlawful ponds policy
The City of London committees involved with the ponds on Hampstead Heath have voted to continue with a “trans inclusive” approach which allows men who say they are women to use the women-only pool, showers and changing rooms. Our legal hearing is scheduled for November.
Media coverage:
Author Amanda Craig wroet in The Telegraph about an encounter with a naked man at the Ladies’ Pond several years ago that led to her visiting the facility much less frequently. Maya discussed the story with Nana Akua on GB News, while Victoria Smith wrote for UnHerd that the City of London Corporation’s decision to retain a trans-inclusive policy rather than following the law on single-sex spaces was an insult to women.
Work with Sex Matters
We’re looking for a proactive and detail-focused administrative assistant to join our team, remotely and full-time (four or five days). The role is varied and rewarding: you’ll be supporting our day-to-day operations, supporter engagement, financial administration and campaign delivery. Could this be you?
EHRC code: write to your MP
More than 120 MPs have signed Labour MP Stella Creasy’s motion calling for Parliament to reject the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s draft code of practice. But they seem not to understand that the code doesn’t make law; it just explains how to follow the law.
Nearly a thousand Sex Matters supporters have already written to their MPs. Could you spare a couple of minutes to do this? Use our simple online tool to challenge them if they signed or offer your support if they didn’t.
Media coverage:
Among those who have signed the motion are two Labour MPs from Hertfordshire, Josh Dean and Chris Hinchliff. Bishop’s Stortford Independent (Sinead Corr) quoted Helen as saying that either the signatories really don’t understand the difference between law and statutory guidance, or they are knowingly indulging in pointless virtue signalling, and that neither possibility is impressive.
In other news
An investigation by NHS Sussex into the rogue WellBN GP practice in Brighton and Hove has resulted in the clinic being ordered to end prescriptions of cross-sex hormones for 78 children. The Telegraph (Michael Searles) quoted Fiona as saying that doctors hellbent on promoting transgender ideology have done untold harm to vulnerable young people,
EHRC chair Mary-Ann Stephenson revealed at a Women and Equalities Committee meeting on Tuesday 9th June that the equalities watchdog needed to relocate after its old office was targeted by transactivists. The Telegraph (Dominic Penna and Daniel Martin) quoted Fiona as saying that it’s disappointing that committee MPs who insist on undermining women’s right to single-sex spaces had nothing to say about vandalism or threats by transactivists.
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