Maths teacher sacked for refusing to use opposite sex pronouns.

I hope the DBS has pretty damn good grounds. That is absolutely shocking.

@F1rstDoNoHarm ,

‘A more useful analogy with anorexia would be that a teacher is instructed by the school to affirm the student's belief that she is fat and encourage her to consider liposuction.’

No, absolutely not. He is not being asked to encourage her beliefs but merely to teach her Maths and call her by her chosen name (and I guess use new pronouns in her report, but I bet he could get around that by just using her new name).

Classroom teachers are not counsellors and shouldn’t be diving in where professionals would go very gently and carefully.

In my own small experience in this area, I always called pupils by their chosen names and hedged my gender answers when asked, but was very explicit about the immutable nature of chromosomal based sex, which is staying true to the science.

And, as I predicted up above, he looks like he is losing his case, as his dogmatism is not allowing him to engage with the court process properly.

Unfortunately he has been classed as the equivalent of a convicted pedophile by DBS and can never work with children as he will not pass an enhanced DBS. So he is also having to take the DBS to court for judicial review of their decision. The whole thing is just total persecution. I have contributed to his crowd funder . https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12988019/amp/Teacher-sues-Government-misgendering-student.html

A more useful analogy with anorexia would be that a teacher is instructed by the school to affirm the student's belief that she is fat and encourage her to consider liposuction.

You seem to have misunderstood what was going on @Newbutoldfather.

This is from the article that Kevin Lister wrote for the Daily Mail.

My ordeal began in September 2021, when I received an email from one of my A-level pupils, Lizzie*, informing me that she wanted to be known as 'Liam', and addressed with male pronouns.

The request came out of the blue. There had been no suggestion that she felt uncomfortable as a girl.

Concerned about Lizzie's wellbeing, I raised a safeguarding concern with the school — Swindon New College — and asked if her parents had been notified or asked for their consent to their daughter changing gender at school. I also raised the possibility that she might be self-medicating with testosterone.

The reason for this is that I had read reports of young women recklessly purchasing this hormone online — which aids the physical transition from female to male — if they are unable to obtain it on prescription.

A few weeks later, the college's safeguarding team told me they were not going to contact Lizzie's parents. They didn't justify this decision, but I strongly believe the college was taking the advice given by trans activist groups not to inform parents of a student's gender change without the child's permission.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12887549/I-sacked-20-years-teacher-standing-gender-ideology-new-guidance-welcome-writes-KEVIN-LISTER.html

He was concerned about the wellbeing of the student. He thought her parents should be informed and her transgender identity should be discussed with them. The school decided her parents didn't need to know and shouldn't be informed. The school acted recklessly.

I think there is a degree of hypocrisy about names going on.

If a boy can wear a dress, why can’t a boy be called Jane? I mean my own name is a girls’ name in another language.

Why can’t a Maths teacher call this student by their chosen name without fully buying into them changing ‘gender’. In the past I taught a girl who was socially transitioning, called them by their new name, but never believed they had changed anything bar their name.

There is a massive difference between fighting a confused child compared with law or guidance from large establishments.

It is like I wouldn’t tell an anorexic in class that they were thin and had body dysmorphia, regardless of the fact that is an objective truth.

I wish Ben was there 😕

@Tukmgru But is it a "need" to be called by a new name? Social transition is not a neutral act according to the Cass review. Would you call someone Napoleon if he told you he was Napoleon? Would this need, if it is in fact one, trump someone your else's legally protected gender-critical beliefs? What about the safeguarding risks?

There is not just one teacher affected here. If he uses the new name, surely the message is, everyone must. Does the "need" (how do you prove that this is a need?) of one individual trump the right to freedom of expression and the right to holding a legally protected belief of a large group of people? I am not sure this case is as clearcut as you seem to think.

Can you give me an example of compelled speech please? I thought it was being forced to say something with which you disagree, irrespective if that is rude or hurting someone else's feelings.

This is just another case where the rights and wants of different individuals or groups clash.

He is crowdfunding - pretty sure any link here will be deleted - but using his name and crowd fund to Google brings it up easily. Time for a bit of gardening! 🥬 🍅 🥕

You’re mixing two things up. Yes, it isn’t wise for an amateur to represent himself in court and it sounds as if he’s making a dog’s breakfast of it. But that does not mean that it is a “pseudo-intellectual” defence to argue that he was being compelled to use certain speech - speech that went against his fundamental beliefs. For this is what happened.

Good point. He should crowd fund for a shit hot lawyer. He'd have no trouble AT ALL in raising the funds.

There are few things more reckless than trying to represent yourself in court. If he thinks he’s going to get the chance to stand up and make a political statement he’s in for a rude awakening, doubly so if he thinks that using pseudo-intellectual arguments like ‘compelled speech’ will provide a magic wand.

He’s going to have to find a way to demonstrate that his personal beliefs trump the child’s personal needs under the law as it stands, and I’m pretty sure (though one can never be certain) his arguments will be found wanting.

It wasn’t pronouns, he was refusing to call her by her ‘new’ name in class, arguing it is compelled speech, which I just think is pretty rude.

But it is compelled speech! That’s exactly what compelled speech is. He refused to be forced into pretending he thought she was now a boy.

Fingers crossed he wins. What a shocking waste of everyone's time. I have never felt more sorry for teachers than I do now.

Either way, if he couldn’t call her by her ‘new’ name, he should have discussed it with his head of pastoral and they could, together with the girl and her parents, come up with a compromise which worked for everyone.

That's exactly what he tried to do, but the school prevented him from doing it. There's some background to the case here:

https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/kevin-lister-v-new-college-swindon

In 2021, a 17-year-old female student told Mr. Lister she wanted to be referred to as male using he/him pronouns. Mr. Lister then raised a safeguarding concern stating that he wasn't able to affirm the pupil unless he had parental consent. He contacted the safeguarding team 10 days later and was told they did not intend to speak to the parents.

There's another thread here: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5031546-teacher-kevin-listers-court-case-starts-today-on-tribunal-tweets?reply=133906454

It's open to remote observers, send an email with your name and email address agreeing to abide with judge's directives to
[email protected]- request for Remote Observation of 1404223/2022 Mr K Lister v New College Swindon.

@Newbutoldfather

You all need to remember it is a confused and vulnerable minor here!

She is only confused because she's been led up the garden path to believe you can pick and choose your sex/gender.

She wouldn't have been confused if she'd been brought up as a female and given no indication she could change her sex/gender, in the same way she could change her favourite pop group or football team.

We, as society, have caused all these problems by buying into the lie that you can choose.

I despair at a few decades of women's lib where we'd been banging the drum for equality, fair treatment, etc., with the aim of making women equal to men in terms of careers, education, etc. We've embraced alternative sexualities so people are a lot more free to be gay, bisexual etc. We should be in a position where men and women are equal, should be able to dress the same (we've made massive progress there in women not having to wear dresses/skirts anymore etc), choose how they want to be intimate with of either sex, etc.

Rather than encouraging people to think they can change and choose their sex/gender, we should be continuing the fight to make it less important as to what sex/gender you are and to accept nature rather than fight it and most importantly to continue the fight for equality so that people of either sex have the same opportunities, rights etc.

@RapidOnsetGenderCritic Then the world truly has gone mad.

Who would want to be a teacher?

It’s quite obviously a case of compelled speech.

Whether he was rude, undiplomatic, ineffective, a dislikeable person, or anything else, is neither here nor there.

I'd have thought if the competition was just for girls and this DC was a biological girl then fine for her to enter but she would need to be entered as a female.

You all need to remember it is a confused and vulnerable minor here!

You can’t just foist a view, correct or otherwise, on someone who is not ready to hear it. And adults humiliating children in front of their peers is a real no no in education; rightly so.

The maths teacher was either highly insensitive or maybe a bit on-the-spectrum himself.

Either way, if he couldn’t call her by her ‘new’ name, he should have discussed it with his head of pastoral and they could, together with the girl and her parents, come up with a compromise which worked for everyone.

He is clearly going to lose this case for all the above reasons.

He has been barred from teaching children by DBS, I understand.

That is a false comparison, and I think you know it.

If a child wants to change their name, with the consent of the parents, and that new name is on the register, of course it would be correct to use it.

That was not the case here. The child in question had decided to change their name (;again) without any formal process. It could be argued that pointing was the safest and most considerate way of indicating the child.

This case is local to me and has caused a lot of debate and interest locally. The prevailing view seems to be that the teacher was competent and popular, and is missed.

So she's girl enough when it comes to wanting to enter a girls competition but wants to be addressed as a boy. We have some very confused young people out there who shouldn't be being so encouraged in all this nonsense. Why are so many people suddenly so unhappy with the sex they were born? Why are so many kids thinking changing their gender is the answer to all their problems? It's all very worrying and being very badly handled. I guess it's easier and cheaper to just let them call themselves whatever they like than actually deal with their mental health problems.

Maybe he wanted to make the subtle point that she considered herself to be a boy yet still wanted to enter a competition for girls, and of course if she were to enter a competition for girls it might raise questions applying in the name of Liam or Oscar, or whatever. I think his point was 'yes you can enter it, of course you can, because it's a matter of simple fact and biology that you are a girl. But why do you want to enter a girl's competition if you see yourself as a boy? You can't cherry pick.'