Female suspects can be strip-searched by transgender women who were born male, according to recent police guidance.
The new advice issued by the National Police Chief's Council (NPCC) to British police chiefs advises each force to recognise the new identity of transgender officers from the "moment they transition".
"Thus, once a Transgender colleague has transitioned, they will search persons of the same gender as their own lived gender,' the guidance reads.
If the suspect objects to being searched by a transgender officer, the council says it might be "advisable" to swap to a different cop.
But if refusal is based on discriminatory views, the council says a "non-crime hate incident" should be recorded.
The guidance - which was released quietly in December - was revealed by former superintendent Cathy Larkman, the Mail On Sunday reports.
Mrs Larkman, 54, who served as a police officer for 30 years, says she became worried about recent scandals causing women to lose trust in policing.
One case she mentioned was the tragic murder of Sarah Everard by former Met police officer, Wayne Couzens, who falsely arrested her for breaking Covid restrictions before kidnapping, raping and then killing her.
Before the guidance was published, mum-of-three Mrs Larkman wrote to several policing bodies seeking clarification about whether women have a choice about the sex of the officer searching them.
Under existing laws, strip searches must be carried out by an officer of the same sex.
But Mrs Larkman - supported by the Women's Rights Network - was left stunned when the NPCC shared the guidance with her last week.
She told The Mail on Sunday: "The more I read it, the more shocked I was.
"This is a devastating blow to women's trust in the police. Women are not even an afterthought in this guidance — they are completely non-existent. Everything is geared towards the sensitivities of the officer doing the searching.
"They claim they are trying to be inclusive. But this isn't inclusive of women and it doesn't respect their sex."
She went on to say the guidance shows where the "priorities" of chief officers currently lay - which is not with the concerns of women.
Mrs Larkman claimed the NPCC's discussions about reducing gender-based violence are just filled with "hollow words".
It comes after the Equality and Human Rights Commission ruled that gyms, hospitals and shops are allowed, by law, to offer single-sex services.
And just days later, Boris Johnson waded into the trans-rights row, saying "biological males" should not take part in women's sport and venues should have women-only spaces.
The Prime Minister said that was "as far as my thinking has developed" on trans rights and "seems to me to be sensible", though he acknowledged he may be "in conflict with some others".
He was speaking at a hospital in Hertfordshire on Wednesday after more than 100 organisations pulled out of a major LGBT conference - Safe To Be Me, planned for June - in protest over his failure to include trans conversion therapy in a government ban on the practices.
The PM said he was "sad about the reaction", which came after a partial U-turn in which the government banned all gay conversion therapy,
But he refused to back down, adding he believed women-only spaces should be protected and "biological males" should be excluded from women's sport.
He added he was "very proud" of his record on LGBT issues but "complexities and sensitivities" remain around the ban.
