School reaches ‘amicable resolution’ with teacher who claims religion requires him to misgender trans kids
Sign supporting trans students. (Derek R Henkle/AFP/Getty)
A teacher who claimed his evangelical Christian beliefs require him to misgender a transgender boy has reached an undisclosed settlement with his former school.
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was employed as a maths teacher at a state secondary school in Oxfordshire, and claimed that he was unable to use male pronouns for a male transgender student because “as a Christian, I do not share [the] belief in the ideology of transgenderism”.
The teacher had threatened to take a “constructive dismissal” discrimination case to an employment tribunal after he was found to have “contravened the school’s equality policy”.
School reaches ‘amicable resolution’ with teacher who blatantly misgendered pupil.
However, this week the school reached an undisclosed settlement with Sutcliffe.
The teacher was represented by the Christian Legal Centre, an offshoot of anti-LGBT+ lobbying group Christian Concern.
A statement said: “The parties have reached an amicable resolution, the details of which are confidential and the parties shall not engage in any further communication regarding this case.”
The BBC reports that the Christian pastor “is no longer at the school”, which declined to comment on the settlement.
Teacher claimed accommodating trans kids is ‘detrimental to the welfare of children’.
In a letter to the school’s head teacher, the teacher had insisted: “I do not believe that young children should be encouraged to self-select a ‘gender’ which may be different from their biological sex; or that everyone at school should adjust their behaviour to accommodate such a ‘transition’; or that people should be punished for lack of enthusiasm about it.
“Implementation of these ideas is detrimental to the welfare of children, which I believe should be a paramount consideration.”
The teacher is also a pastor at the evangelical Christ Revelation church in Oxford.
His representatives, the Christian Legal Centre, frequently defend clients accused of anti-LGBT+ conduct, with one client let off of misconduct charges in 2018 over posts that claimed gay people are “worthy of death”.
Christian Concern has also vowed to oppose a ban on gay cure therapy, and backed calls for ‘freedom to discriminate’ protections for religious people who oppose LGBT+ rights.
