For anyone wondering, as I am, what this is about, the headline on the Daily Mail article sums it up :
"Trans rights activist is named on judging panel that will hear case of a Christian teaching assistant sacked for speaking out against gender identity lessons at primary schools"
The pastoral assistant was sacked after she made private facebook posts (one a petition), believing her son (9) to be too young for sex education and gender identity at his C of E primary school.
What is the 'judging panel'?
It's the employment tribunal system - not, as I thought, professional teaching disciplinary bodies.
She lost her case of unfair dismissal on grounds of religious belief at the employment tribunal and is appealing against that decision to the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) on a point of law.
The EAT comprises a High Court judge assisted by two lay members with experience of the employer's and employee's side of the workplace. Mr Lord apparently has become one of the lay members in the employment tribunal system and the Christian Legal Centre has asked for him to be removed from the hearing of this appeal.
The Christian Legal Centre website has some information about the employment tribunal decision:
[In part: ]
"... the Tribunal has concluded that Mrs Higgs’s dismissal... was not related to the Christian beliefs she expressed on social media, such as her opposition to sex education in primary schools or to the idea of gender fluidity.
Rather, her dismissal “was the result of a genuine belief on the part of the School that she had committed gross misconduct”...
“Although not stated as clearly or simply as this, the act of which we concluded Mrs Higgs was accused and eventually found guilty was posting items on Facebook that might reasonably lead people who read her posts to conclude that she was homophobic and transphobic...”
The Tribunal has acknowledged that Mrs Higgs’s Christian beliefs on sexual ethics do not equate to homophobia or transphobia. "...she told us she “loved everyone” and there was no reason to believe she would behave towards any person in a way such as to deliberately and gratuitously upset or offend them.”
However, the Tribunal agreed with the School’s position that it was concerned that readers of her Facebook posts would see them as homophobic and transphobic rather than merely an expression of Christian beliefs “in a temperate and rational way.”