After more than a decade of permitting trans-identifying males to be put in women’s facilities, police forces across the UK are reversing their policies in the wake of the April 2025 Supreme Court ruling that “woman” in the UK Equality Act refers to biological sex.
The women’s rights group Sex Matters has been monitoring the policies of various police forces and sending legal letters to the laggers; in response, the British Transport Police, Merseyside Police, Northumbria Police, Surrey Police, Sussex Police, and Metropolitan Police have fallen into line. Last month, the Court of Session also ruled that the Scottish Prison Service must house trans-identifying males in male prisons.
But according to a July 26 report in the Telegraph, the Staffordshire Police are holding out. According to the force, “detainees may be placed in accommodation consistent with their gender identity,” meaning that trans-identifying men can still be placed in “women’s-only custody cells” in direct violation of last year’s Supreme Court ruling. According to the Telegraph, the “revised” policies of Staffordshire Police allow “a person to self-identify with their chosen gender” and has “been accused of providing ‘contradictory’ guidance on whether an officer of the opposite sex can carry out strip searches.”
In fact, the Staffordshire Police policies emphasize an “explicit policy commitment to self-identification” and that “where recognised, detainees may be placed in accommodation consistent with their gender identity.” The policy notes that this is essential because “risk of inappropriate placement (e.g. housing a trans woman in male custody)” will create “safety risks including assault, bullying, or harassment.”
When contacted by the Telegraph, Staffordshire Police insisted that their policies were compliant with the law because risk to prisoners was mitigated by placement in separate cells and strip-searches are decided on a case-by-case basis, but Cathy Larkman of the Women’s Rights Network disagreed. “These policies do not comply with the Supreme Court judgment, and they indicate a level of ignorance with the law and a disregard for the rights of women that is deeply concerning,” she said.
Of course, if prisoners are placed in separate cells, this presumably eliminates the risk of “assault, bullying, or harassment.” The Staffordshire Police policies additionally emphasize that staff must “uphold inclusive language” and engage in “‘respectful’ pronoun use,” the Telegraph noted. In short, staff will be required to verbally affirm what the Supreme Court rejected: that a trans-identifying man is a woman.
Currently, Sex Matters is challenging similarly ambiguous guidelines from the National Police Chiefs’ Council that permits a trans-identifying person to “request a search by an officer of the opposite biological sex,” which the group states “will lead to discrimination and harassment of female officers.”
“It is unforgivable that Staffordshire Police still fails to reflect fully the For Women Scotland Supreme Court judgment and the clear same-sex requirement in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act,” Terence Stock, a former member of the police force’s Independent Advisory Group, told the Telegraph.
“Intimate searches are among the most intrusive powers imaginable, and disproportionately affect women with histories of trauma and sexual violence. Police forces must follow the law, protect those in custody, and treat sex as the biological reality it is – not continue to make concessions that put women at risk.”
The women’s rights groups in the UK are laying out a playbook that social conservatives should learn from. They saw the Supreme Court ruling as the beginning of their battle, not the conclusion. Since then, they have won a string of follow-up legal victories to purge institutions of transgender policies, from hospitals to police services to the prison system. When attacked by major NGOs such as Amnesty International UK, they have punched back—twice as hard. They have remained perpetually on the offensive, and their counter-campaign has been more effective than I would have thought possible.