The British Transport Police (BTP) is facing legal action over new guidance allowing transgender officers to strip-search women.

Campaigners from gender-critical group Sex Matters have sent a pre-action letter to the BTP challenging their new policy, which is the first step towards taking them to court for a judicial review of the guidelines.

The guidance was authorised in September by the assistant chief constable for network policing.

It states that regardless of whether transgender staff possess a gender recognition certificate or not, the BTP recognises their trans status and will use the preferred pronouns.

However, it specifies that staff can only search people of the same sex as “either their birth certificate or GRC.”

This means biologically male police can intimately search women as long as they have a gender recognition certificate.

This comes after similar guidance released by the National Police Chiefs Council in January was withdrawn after public outcry, with the Conservative government raising concerns about women’s safety.

Due to this, the NPCC said it was conducting a thorough review of its guidance on searches conducted by transgender officers.

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Referring to the BTP’s new rules, Maya Forstater, the chief executive of gender-critical campaign group Sex Matters called the guidance “state-sponsored sex discrimination and sexual abuse.”

She said the guidance breached the Human Rights Act, the Equality Act, and PACE, the law requiring strip-searches to be done by someone of the same sex.

Forstater added that too many officers have been found guilty of sexual offences, and that men are responsible for 98 per cent of sex crimes.

“Abuse of position for sexual purposes is the largest area of corruption that the Independent Office of Police Complaints deals with,” she said.

“The police say that lessons have been learnt and then adopt a policy of institutionalised sexual harassment and abuse of women.”

She said women should not be degraded by being made to strip in front of a man.

Retired police superintendent and national policing lead for the Women’s Rights Network Cathy Larkman said: “The letter before action to British Transport Police by Sex Matters is a significant development in this sorry tale of police forces putting ideology, and the unjustifiable self-interest of very few individuals, before the dignity, privacy and safety of women.”

A spokesman for the BTP said that a person can object to being searched by any officer: “A person being searched can object to being searched by any officer; this officer will be replaced by another member of the team to conduct the search in their place.”