Kevin Lister: teacher refused to use wrong sex pronouns, sacked: tribunal appeal

[MyAmpleSheep]

Is anyone following this case? The EAT hearing was yesterday and today.

tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/k-lister-vs-new-college-swindon-dbs

Yes both I guess! Either way ridiculous

Safeguarding cases may serious enough to include those where a victim is legally entitled to lifelong anonymity unless waived by the victim. They may involve other pupils, other members of staff or members of the victims family. Respecting confidentiality and only speaking about the issue to the appropriate people professionally involved in safeguarding cases is therefore essential.

KL decided himself this situation was a safeguarding issue and then repeatedly discussed it in public. This action will almost certainly have been against the professional advice of the schools safeguarding lead and headteacher.

It's not hard to see that such behaviour is incompatible with the responsibilities that a teacher has to all their pupils.

I don’t see the logic there , the teacher used the biological pronouns and the student’s legal name - they have done nothing wrong.

Yet I strongly believe if She makes a point of calling him “Delilah,” and referring to him using female pronouns when referring to him in meetings, whether in his presence or not, and in emails to the team. She says things like “Just like a perfectly woman” any time he does anything that she regards as stereotypically female behaviour-. She would be celebrated as an amazing trans ally…

😆 Love Key & Peele. The Outkast sketch by them is fantastic too.

For what should be very obvious reasons, a teacher cannot talk about safeguarding cases in public.

Even when a teacher disagrees with the professional advice and course of action agreed by others who are the safeguarding leads/police/social services, they still cannot talk about it in public.

Repeatedly disregarding such a basic concept of confidentiality means no school can have confidence that confidentiality for any other pupil would be respected.

The pupil, supported by her family, felt abused by the public discussion of their case, so to claim KL has done nothing wrong is incorrect.

I disagree, in a training situation at a place of work cases are often cited . The fact that the safeguarding them said they would not contact home initially and were happy to allow a student to identify as a non biological gender is by far a bigger concern. I think this an example of how safeguarding is used to support this agenda which is to the detriment of young people.

That's a mogwai, not a gremlin!

Is that not a bit "bananarama" though?

He spoke in public, not to those working on the alleged safeguarding case. In public, including other pupils for goodness sake.

In other cases, these other pupils, other colleagues, family members may be involved in the allegations. It is grossly irresponsible to talk in public about safeguarding cases for this reason alone.

If he had concerns that the school wasn't taking it seriously enough or responding appropriately, he could have contacted the councils safeguarding lead, social services etc. The perceived failure in his view is no excuse to discuss the case in public, with other pupils.

He chose to make it a safeguarding issue and, as an experienced teacher, knew what restrictions are necessarily in place to safeguard (potential) victims but also chose to completely disregard them.

Evidence for this? That he discussed specific individual safeguarding details inappropriately rather than general principles (e.g. schools should generally not comply with social transition as a secret being deliberately concealed from parents )

The problem is refusing to use wrong sex pronouns and participate in social transition is considered "bullying and harassment" by TRAs. Basically not immediately doing whatever they want is "bullying and harassment" in their world view. Any boundary or attempt to balance the rights and needs of others= bullying. It's a pretty central tenet of the ideology.

Meh, respect isn't a belief statement so off with his head.

I remember this case - and how aspects of it made me feel uncomfortable.

I'll start by saying that I fully support Kevin Lister not having to use opposite-sex pronouns. I also fully support him trying to get the college to see sense that it's a safeguarding matter when a student wants to socially transition. It's unfortunate for him that a) the college didn't look at it through this lens and b) the risks about social transition weren't as clear in the KCSIE guidance as they are now (from memory, this happened during the time that the KCSIE had just 4 paragraphs on gender questioning children and simply pointed to the Cass Report as being a thing).

However, where I found it uncomfortable is the way he seemed to use the maths competition as a way to publicly (i.e. in front of the class) tell the student about eligibility owing to being female. If I've remembered that incorrectly and he had actually spoken to the student privately, I owe Kevin an apology. Either way, I think he could have saved himself a lot of trouble by using the student's preferred nickname.

I do hope he wins, because it's important that teachers know they can't be coerced into using the language of gender identity. I also think it would be warranted for him to get a telling off from the court that it ain't what you say, it's the way that you say it... where the way that he said it (the maths competition) was in front of the class. I agree with the Banarama point (that is often made on this board) on many occasions, but on this occasion it does sound like he handled it badly.

As for speaking about a child publicly, I'm not aware that he spoke about the child in an identifiable way. So I can't see how it would be a safeguarding issue when he simply speaks about his case.

@BonfireLady so up until he mentioned this, had the rest of the class believed the pupil was male?

Excellent post (as usual).

Yes, I think he possibly did handle things badly. He seems to be getting the treatment that women usually get when they don't express themselves perfectly at all times.

However the punishment meted out to him was disproporationate and there seems to be absolutely no follow up on the legitimate safeguarding concerns he raised for which he should NOT have been sanctioned. In fact sanctioning someone for raising safeguarding concerns is a safeguarding red flag.

E.g. the parents not being informed. Essentially the school 'keeping secrets' from the parents. Are other children coerced into keeping these secrets too? It seems massively unhealthy and anti-safeguarding for all involved.

I'd like to clarify the one about the girls maths contest. According to the previous case judgement it was the pupil who asked the teacher whether she was eligible, and voluntarily signed up when he said yes. She may have thought the better of it later. And I don't think it's fair to speculate on an identifiable (to people who know them) student's motives.

I think he could have answered more tactfully but he couldn't say no as that would be actual gender reassignment discrimination.

Thank you for this. Yes, difficult to see what he could have done differently in that case.

This is why it's so serious that he was referred and has been barred by the DBS system. It frames adults raising concerns as a safeguarding hazard to children. It seems to me to be a political decision rather than one that genuinely evaluates risk - but without seeing the details of how the DBS reached this conclusion, it's hard to be certain.

Experience tells us that the DBS is likely to be like so many of our institutions - trained by the self interested to see trans as a sacred caste and any challenge as wrongthink.

Yes, if he really was barred for raising a safeguarding concern, then safeguarding is dead because how can anyone possibly ever raise a concern if they need to keep their job?

The DBS system should be accountable for this and transparent about how the decision was reached and on what grounds - has this happened?

Who can I raise this with?

Yet universities continue to worship at the altar of trans
https://www.ox.ac.uk/events/edb-lecture-2026-gender-and-the-pursuit-of-liberation-trans-inclusion-in-education-sports

Oxford is saturated in gender ideology. I don't see that changing anytime soon, the TRAs are very active in the administrative staff from grassroots to mid-level management.

I feel every institution and places such as publishing and academia are all so enmeshed in trans we are losing sight of reality. It must be hard for young women at universities or in the work place to stand up for sex reality when it will see them called transphobic. A word thrown about in my view to silence us.

No debate was their starting mantra. Really dark times in my view. Championing mental illness seems to be de rigeur.

I believe the DBS decision is being dealt with at a separate appeal in December.

Yes. I think in his social media presence it shows that he has been very angry about the way this has been managed by the school and the DBS. He comes across as not being particularly skilled at navigating other people's social expectations.

I had teachers like that; some were good teachers, for example my Physics teacher, who completely misread a situation where a pupil was being silly in class, so deserved a bit of a telling off, but he thought the pupil was stealing by picking someone's pocket and absolutely humiliated him. These days he would have been at risk of a bullying accusation; back then the pupil was expected to take it on the chin, knuckle down and keep his nose clean (deliberate mixing of metaphors). This was a good teacher, with high expectations of pupils, who could be clumsy in his interactions with them. I think Kevin Lister has a lot in common with him.

In the end, the KL situation is a matter of opinion. Did he step over a boundary of teacher behaviour? If he did, how serious was it, and were there mitigating factors? Or was his behaviour justified and the school overreacted from a misguided wish to overprotect the most vulnerable cohort in our society a few years ago?