Transgender discrimination

Case 7: The facts

A, a male-to-female transgender person, applied for a job as a police officer. She was rejected solely on the grounds that she would not be capable of performing all the duties of the post – including searches, which according to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) must be carried out by a constable of the same sex as the person being searched.

The ruling

The House of Lords held that the Chief Constable had unlawfully discriminated against A when he refused to employ her. Although as a matter of English law the applicant remained a man and could not legally search a woman, EC law recognises her reassigned gender for the purposes of sex discrimination law. The duties of the post for the purposes of PACE must therefore also be interpreted as applying to her in her reassigned gender.

A v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police [2004] IRLR 573