A prominent women’s rights activist who tweeted that a transgender GP “enjoys intimately examining his patients” has revealed how police threatened to arrest her before launching a 10-month investigation.
Maya Forstater, 51, director of the charity Sex Matters, has revealed that Scotland Yard has been investigating her for the crime of malicious communications since August 2023.
The alleged offence, which carries a penalty of up to two years in prison, relates to a post Ms Forstater wrote on X/Twitter about former trans GP Dr Kamilla Kamaruddin.
Dr Kamaruddin said that after the transition, patients allowed her to do “more intimate examinations that I wasn’t allowed to do when I was a GP”.
Ms Forstater tweeted in June last year that Dr Kamaruddin “enjoys intimately examining patients without their consent”.
But she claims that while on holiday she received an email from the Metropolitan Police saying she would be arrested unless she voluntarily attended a police interview.
Mrs Forstater, who noted that Dr Kamaruddin was listed as a woman on the GP’s website, told MailOnline: ‘I spent a lot of time wondering what it was, what the crime could have been, because they didn’t tell me, so it was very stressful and they also threatened to arrest me.
‘They said, “Either you come for a voluntary interview or we will mark you as wanted and you will be arrested.”
Maya Forstater (pictured), 51, director of the charity Sex Matters, has revealed that Scotland Yard has been investigating her for the crime of malicious communications since August 2023.
Dr Kamaruddin (pictured) transitioned from male to female as a GP in 2015 while working in east London. He now works at a gender services clinic.
And obviously I didn’t want to get arrested, so I went. So I had to find a lawyer and went to the police station to be questioned, and only then was they told me what the tweet was that was supposed to be a crime.
‘I sort of thought this must be a mistake. It was like half a tweet. She didn’t tag anyone. It was attached to a blog post explaining why I said it.
“It wasn’t a threat to anyone, it wasn’t obscene, it was based on facts and a rather disturbing fact that a male doctor was bragging about examining women who wanted a female doctor, and who were told they were going to get a female doctor.” .
“Most people want a woman, and if you ask for a woman, you should get a woman.”
The post linked to a previous blog post in which the women’s rights activist had questioned whether GP patients could give proper consent to be examined by a trans doctor.
Ms Forstater, who accused the force of “harassment and intimidation” in an interview with The timeshas revealed that she was first contacted by police last August, who informed her that she was “currently being investigated for an allegation of malicious communications.”
She was then interviewed under caution at Charing Cross police station last September. But ten months after first being contacted by police, she still has not heard the outcome of the investigation.
Forstater, who has not ruled out legal action against the force, said she was told she was being questioned for “targeting a member of the trans community”.
But he told MailOnline: ‘I don’t think he targeted a member of the trans community. I think I talked about a doctor who was doing something inappropriate.
This is the tweet for which the Metropolitan Police are investigating Mrs Forstater.
“If you can’t call that out, then what you’re doing is making it so that a section of society can’t be criticized or scrutinized… even when they’re in a position to ask a woman to take off her underwear and have herself examined.
‘It is a situation in which maximum respect should have been given to the patients, not to the identity of the doctor who identifies as trans.
‘And if you can’t report that without the police saying you’re targeting a vulnerable community and then calling you and basically acting like a private police force, then bad things are going to happen.
“People will not respect the privacy and dignity and consent of women.”
Speaking of the investigation, he said: ‘I think it’s been terrible. I think it has been discriminatory. The police are trained by Stonewall and the CPS are trained by Stonewall and they are trained to think that women who say trans women are men are bigots and doing something illegitimate.
“When I was questioned, I said I didn’t have confidence that the police would treat me fairly, because they… they’ve all had training to say that it’s transphobic to say that a man who identifies as a woman is still a man.
“But unless you can say you can’t protect women’s rights.”
Ms Forstater (pictured) has revealed she was first contacted by police last August who informed her she was “currently being investigated over an allegation of malicious communications”.
Mrs Forstater continued: ‘If they have any sense I hope they close the matter and apologise.
‘I’m thinking carefully about what I’ll do next. But the first thing that needs to happen is that this investigation needs to end because this has been on my mind for too long.
He said he was “carefully considering” whether to take legal action against the force.
Mrs Forstater told how her lawyer told police it was “ridiculous”, adding: “This is nowhere near what malicious communication requires for a prosecution.”
‘You should stop the interview right now, or not continue with it at all. This is discrimination. It is an abuse of my human rights, of my freedom of expression, to drag someone to the police station to question them about a tweet.
“But the police said ‘no, we’re going to continue with this,’ and they did. And since then, my lawyer emails them every two months to tell them what’s going on and they keep saying we’re still investigating.’
Dr Kamaruddin transitioned from male to female as a GP in 2015 while working in east London. He now works at a gender services clinic.
He wrote about his transition in the British Journal of General Practice in an article titled “What it’s like to be a transgender patient and a GP.” She said: ‘Many of my patients were quite conservative (many patients wore long clothes or hijab), but they allowed me to examine them despite my change.
“Every single one of them rejected my offer of a companion even though they knew I was transgender.”
He received an award at the Royal College of General Practitioners ‘inspire’ awards in 2019 and received the Frontline Hero Pink News award in 2020.
The GP wrote elsewhere: “I was afraid that my patients would treat me differently as they might not agree with my new identity due to prejudice and ignorance.”
Patients can choose to see a male or female GP, depending on NHS policy, and the General Medical Council advises that companions should also be frequently offered to patients of either sex.
Dr. Kamaruddin declined to comment.
A Metropolitan Police spokesperson told The Times: “Since this allegation was reported in June 2023, officers have carried out a number of investigations. These investigations are ongoing. While it is right that we carry out a full investigation, we recognize the time this has taken so far and the impact it will undoubtedly have had on all parties.’