Wednesday 4th July 2001

Transsexual officers in 2 other forces, tribunal told

Yorkshire police face sex-change dilemma

Two police forces, Essex and North Yorkshire, are currently employing transsexual officers, a tribunal was told.

The claim was made at an employment appeal where West Yorkshire police are trying to overturn an earlier ruling in favour of a woman who has been trying for five years to join the force.

Stephanie Harrison, representing the woman in her 30s, known only as A, said: “Since the decision of the employment tribunal, police forces are actively recruiting transsexuals.”

She urged the three member Employment Appeal Tribunal, sitting in London and presided over by Mr Justice Lindsay, to look at the new evidence and take it into account.

“As far as we know, there were no police forces that were recruiting transsexuals before the decision of the employment tribunal.

“We say that it is relevant because it contradicts in a concrete way the assertions made by this particular police force that they cannot make these accommodations.

“Police forces in practice have now been doing that.

“Essex and North Yorkshire are the two forces that have transsexual officers at the moment.”

West Yorkshire police is seeking an authoritative ruling from the tribunal as to whether A is legally still a man, which it says would present an “insuperable obstacle” to her carrying out searches involving more than removal of a female suspect’s outer garments.

Miss Harrison said of the transsexual recruits in the other forces: “They are accommodated within the police forces without carrying out searches, that’s our information.”

West Yorkshire’s counsel David Bean QC, asked for his initial reaction to the new evidence, said: “They (the results of the research) are of no value … all they tell you is that two of the 43 forces in the country employ one transsexual, possibly more … most haven’t replied.”

He told the hearing earlier: “The West Yorkshire force has no animosity towards transsexuals, and its concern is to obtain an authoritative ruling on whether A is, for all legal purposes … woman.

“The case law, we say, so far has been in law, once a man, always a man.  If that law has changed, or can be overruled or departed from, so that A is, for all purposes a woman, then the problem disappears and my client would have no objection to considering A as a possible recruit for the police.”

But Miss Harrison said there was a dichotomy between the legal situation and the social reality.

“Everybody who meets her (A) believes what she knows to be the case, that she is a woman,” he said. “In her social life, she is treated as a woman for all social purposes.

“For a substantial number of purposes the UK is prepared to see A as a woman, for the purposes of her passport, her driving licence, social security.”

But she added: “A test that is 30 years old condemns her to live effectively in limbo

“For the purposes of this, the police say she cannot be treated as a woman, and we say the law cannot tolerate the kind of harsh consequences for the individual.”

The hearing continues.

Copyright © 2001 Yorkshire Post Newspapers