New SEEN on the scene

Police Scotland has formally recognised Police SEEN Scotland as a Diversity Staff Association, two years after the first group for gender critical officers was formed in Northumbria.

The new network, PSEENS, has said it will work with Police Scotland on revisions to the Stop and Search Code of Practice.

The decision is a notable victory for Police SEEN, the national network of officers and staff who believe sex is real, immutable and, on occasion, relevant to policing. It was co-founded in 2023 by Rachel Fletcher, then a Detective Constable with Northumbria Police.

Fletcher told TERF Times that the force-level networks had all grown from the original Northumbria gender critical working group. Yet Northumbria’s own group twice applied to become a formal Police SEEN network, and was twice refused.

“It’s notable that each of the force-level networks sprouted from Police SEEN UK, which came from the Northumbria gender-critical working group,” she said. “The Northumbria gender critical working group applied to be formalised as Northumbria Police SEEN twice but were refused.”

The current Chief Constable of Northumbria Police is Vanessa Jardine. Until July, she was the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s LGBTQ+ portfolio lead, a role in which she authored the 2021 paper proposing Searching by Transgender Officers and Staff.

The proposed guidance said trans-identified officers should be recognised in their “lived gender” from the point at which they transitioned, defined as presenting in the gender with which they identified. It covered their deployment in searches, including strip searches. It also said that, where a detainee’s objection was considered discriminatory, consideration could be given to recording a non-crime hate incident, or a crime if the circumstances met that threshold.

The guidance was temporarily withdrawn in January 2024 pending legal advice and consultation.

Formal recognition will allow PSEENS limited work time and a small budget, benefits routinely available to other diversity associations. Until now, the work has been voluntary.

“Police SEEN UK work is done out of duty time and is unfunded,” Fletcher said. “All my SEEN work was done on my own time and own dime, including travel to meet people to discuss concerns, technology, merch, everything.”

Fletcher was dismissed without notice from Northumbria Police last month, ending a 23-year career. She said approval for PSEENS came through on the very same day.

“[It] was granted on the same day I was dismissed without notice from my 23-year career,” she wrote on social media. “I wonder why they wanted rid of me.”

Northumbria Police had previously declined to formalise its own gender-critical working group, despite its role in spawning the wider network. Fletcher’s dismissal followed misconduct proceedings over comments she was accused of making while on duty about men which apparently hurt the sensibilities of some colleagues.

The timing of the Scottish decision was, Fletcher said, “a lovely little parting gift from me to UK policing”.

Her hope for the new Scottish association is a less ideological police service. “My biggest hope is that it will restore some political impartiality and equality to Police Scotland, therefore giving Scottish people a reason to have more confidence in their police service.”

Chief Constable Vanessa Jardine will no doubt be drafting her congratulations.

Support Rachel Fletcher here.