Stripped of Recognition: Strip Searching Practices Following the UK Supreme Court’s Definition of ‘Woman’ as Biological

Following the decision of the Supreme Court in For Women Scotland the SLSA blog received immediate submissions discussing different aspects of the judgment. The post below is the first of these responses. Further responses will be posted in the following weeks. If you would like to submit a blog on this topic for consideration and inclusion in this series, please email blogeditors@slsa.ac.uk. All blogs will be submitted to our normal processes of editorial review. 

Níamh Burns, ESRC SCDTP-funded PhD researcher, University of Brighton

Keywords: Strip-Searching, Human Rights, Transgender Rights, Gender Policing, Abolition.

In April 2025, the UK Supreme Court issued a ruling that interpreted the use of the word ‘woman’ in the Equality Act 2010 to mean ‘biological sex.’ This ruling has profound implications for gender recognition and the rights of transgender people as they have effectively been excluded from legal recognition in key public and institutional contexts. It has potentially reshaped how gender is recognised, regulated, and policed by the state. Among the most troubling consequences of this ruling is its legitimisation of strip-searching practices that disregard trans individuals' gender identities, particularly affecting trans women, who may now be forcibly searched by male officers based on their assigned sex at birth. 

Strip Searches: Coercion Framed as Consent 

Strip searches are one of the most invasive tools used by law enforcement. In the UK, they are authorised under several laws that justify such searches in the name of public safety. 

Despite legal framings that suggest procedural neutrality, survivors and scholars have pointed out the harm caused by strip searches, with Davis, for example, linking strip searches within prisons to sexualised violence, describing them as forms of institutionalised assault. Testimonies of those who have experienced strip-searching have also drawn similar comparisons Hutchison (2019). While not all individuals experience strip searches as sexual violence, the inherent coercive nature of the practice raises urgent ethical and legal questions. 

The context in which strip searches occur, under extreme power imbalances, and under threats of force and disciplinary action, removes the ability of a detainee to give genuine consent (Duff and Kemp 2025). As feminist legal theorists such as MacKinnon (1989) and Duff (2018) have argued, compliance under conditions of implicit or explicit threat is itself a form of coercion. This is particularly true in police custody, where detainees often comply under duress, out of fear of retaliation or further violence. In these contexts, the line between a strip search and state-sanctioned sexual assault becomes blurred. 

The Legal Landscape and the Supreme Court’s Ruling 

At the heart of this ruling, is the tension between two key laws, the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Equality Act 2010. The GRA grants transgender people full legal recognition of their gender with a gender recognition certificate, whilst the Equality Act includes ‘gender reassignment’ as a protected characteristic yet also allows for sex-based exemptions in certain contexts, such as single-sex spaces. 

In September 2024, the British Transport Police issued a policy permitting transgender officers to strip-search detainees of the same gender as indicated on their birth certificate or Gender Recognition Certificate. This policy was met with significant controversy and legal challenges, particularly from women's rights groups who align themselves with gender-critical perspectives. These groups argue that allowing officers to conduct strip-searches based on gender identity and not biological sex, contravened the statutory requirements of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 which provides that an officer carrying out a strip search ‘shall be of the same sex as the person searched.’ The Supreme Court agreed, and the decision prompted the British Transport Police to amend its strip-searching policy, revising guidelines to stipulate that strip searches in custody should be conducted according to the detainee’s biological sex. 

This ruling has created a legal paradox, one which legally recognises trans people’s gender in the GRA, while allowing it to be selectively ignored through the Equality Act. Legal recognition has therefore become conditional and reversible, dependent on the specific context in which gender is being interpreted. What the Supreme Court ruling has effectively done, is give greater legal weight to sex-based exceptions over trans inclusion, trans rights are always secondary, and subject to be overridden. 

At the time of writing this paper, The Prison and Probation Service Searching Policy Framework (2023) in the UK outlines that transgender prisoners with a Gender Recognition Certificate are legally recognised as their acquired gender. Male-to-female transgender prisoners with a gender reassignment certificate should therefore be searched by female officers, aligning with the protocols for female prisoner. However, the recent ruling introduces a legal uncertainty around this policy, as its reasoning could be invoked to challenge or revise operational definitions of gender in custodial settings. 

Violations of Human Rights 

Strip searches are not just legal or procedural issues; they are human rights concerns. Under the European Convention on Human Rights, to which the UK remains a signatory, individuals are protected against degrading treatment under Article 3 and have the right to privacy and bodily integrity under Article 8. Strip searches of trans individuals by officers of the opposite gender, especially when done without regard for their affirmed identity, can clearly violate both. Not only is their bodily autonomy violated, but their identity is publicly and officially denied. 

International norms, like the UN’s Bangkok Rules, also state that searches must be respectful and trauma-informed, particularly for women who are vulnerable to gender-based violence. This is sadly a group that includes many trans women and by prioritising biological sex over lived experience, the UK has moved away from these international norms. 

The Broader Role of the State in Gender Policing 

Strip searches represent state control over bodies. These practices can be understood as state control over life, identity, and bodily integrity (Aretxaga 2001). 

Trans people are frequently marginalised and hyper-policed because they challenge the dominant binary notions of sex and gender. Subjecting them to invasive searches based on ‘biological sex’ asserts a hierarchal and biologically essentialist view of gender. 

The state, in these moments, is not just enforcing the law, it is deciding who is ‘real,’ and who deserves dignity. 

The Need for Abolition, Not Reform 

The 2025 ruling has deepened existing inequalities, intensifying the risks facing trans individuals and legitimising harmful practices. It symbolises a shift towards trans exclusion and biological essentialism. 

The way forward cannot solely be refining strip searching, the existence of the strip search in general must be questioned. Rather than make them more inclusive, we must dismantle the systems that rely on them.