Teacher sacked in transgender safeguarding row loses her tribunal

JUDGE: CHILD'S BIOLOGICAL SEX MUST STAY SECRET

- By ELLIE CRABBE & MATHILDE GRANDJEAN, PA

A CHRISTIAN teacher sacked after looking at a transgender child’s online safeguarding report and transcribing it to her computer has lost an unfair dismissal and religious discrimination claim. She says she will appeal.

The teacher, who cannot be named and is referred to as A, was told in the summer of 2021 that a child born female - referred to as child X - would be joining her class.

She was asked by the school, run by Nottinghamshire County Council, to refer to the child with a male name and pronouns at the parents’ request. She wrote to the headteacher, saying: “I am concerned that I am required to give ‘affirmative care’ to somebody who may regret it later. I am convinced that blanket affirmative care would be very damaging, potentially leading to irreversible physical and mental harm.”

The head replied: “You are entitled to hold your own personal beliefs and we fully support you in your right to hold those beliefs. However, as those beliefs if acted on could be a direct breach of GDPR and an act of direct discrimination you must not act on them.”

Child X was moved to another class “to safeguard him from any potential harm” and A was given strict instructions to use the name and pronouns the family requested.

The teacher escalated her concerns and her representative wrote to the school saying “it would go against her conscience, informed by her Christian faith, to affirm a young child in their gender dysphoria”.

She was suspended on September 20, 2021, as the row continued.