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

I went to a Catholic school and actually survived 😂
I even go to church playgroups and one of my kids is at a church school and I manage to be polite and respectful to people whose beliefs I don't share.
Now if this teacher is adamant that he doesn't want to be polite and respectful to young people who believe they are trans then I would suggest working in an FE college is really not for him.

I even go to church playgroups and one of my kids is at a church school and I manage to be polite and respectful to people whose beliefs I don't share.

But you're not compelled to share them are you, that's the point?

I don't think so.

Yes he was concerned that the parents may not have known what was going on, but i think that concern was obviously misplaced as the girl's mother ended up complaining to the college about his conduct:

"On 8 March, Student A's mother raised concerns to Mrs about aspects of the Claimant's conduct... She expressed "shock and horror" at the comments which the Claimant had made to her child, to others and on social media which had been reported to her. She was upset that the College had not been in contact with her and she wanted recognition that it viewed the behaviour as unacceptable and an apology. She stated that she was “deeply uncomfortable” at the thought of the Claimant continuing to teach her child and aired concerns about the personal and emotional impact that the conduct had had"

From para 5.93 of the original tribunal judgment

The difference between you and a teacher is that a teacher is supposed to be accurate and factual when they are on duty.
They are actually employed to 'just say it like it is'
A teachers who 'says it like it isn't', isn't doing their job very well.

They really aren't. A teacher doesn't need to go round calling kids 'the fat one' or telling them 'you're not very intelligent' even if that is accurate and factual.

This teacher wasn't compelled to share the student's beliefs either.
No one cares what his beliefs are, they only care about his conduct.

My argument that he was bullying a child? It really does.

Are you under the impression that people can't be bullied by those in authority on the off-chance they have a bit of self-confidence and self-acceptance? Very odd.

Compelling someone to use wrong-sex pronouns is compelling them to outwardly appear to share a student's belief that they are of the opposite sex to their true sex.

It really isn't the same. Telling someone not to say something that is true is not the same as compelling them to say something that isn't true.

How is being told to use the pupil's name 'compelling them to say something that isn't true'? It's their name...

As I've said in a couple of earlier posts, I followed the live stream of this tribunal back in March 2024 and I wasn't at all surprised that he lost.

In the first place I think the evidence showed that he had not handled the issues in the classroom very tactfully - he just seemed to jump into it feet first.

On cross-examination he pretty much admitted that several of the things he had said, done or posted could have been seen to be transphobic, and I think he also accepted that some of the things he'd said might have been expressed too forcefully and could have been said better.

That wasn't a particularly good start but then he represented himself and I simply think he wasn't up to it.

At times in presenting his own case he too often strayed away from proving the points he needed to prove to win his claim and ended up raising irrelevant or tangential issues.

There were also instances (highlighted in the judgment) where on cross-examining the college's witnesses he simply failed to challenge parts of the college's defence - which basically meant that the tribunal had to accept that evidence.

While courts and tribunals have some leeway in accommodating litigants in person they still need to play by the rules and prove their claim. I'm not certain that Kevin Lister got close to doing that

It was a bit of a car crash really and uncomfortable viewing

The original judgment with a summary of the actual facts and evidence in the case is here:

Lister -v- New College Swindon

I'm not sure what the legal basis of his appeal is but hopefully he might fare better with paid for professional representation

(Having followed live streams of several of these protected belief cases I come away with the conclusions that the law is not as clear as many people think it is, and that if you haven't got competent professional representation you will struggle to win)

I said pronouns not name. I think teachers should use the pupils' chosen names, within reason.

I must admit that I am much freer with my donations to cases which women bring. I am more cautious with men because I think ego often plays more of a part, and gets them into unnecessary trouble. Sexist, maybe, but it's my money.

Really, how pathetic 🙄this is a grown man throwing a tantrum about pronouns.

I would object to being told to use wrong sex pronouns. It is compelled speech and we should not allow others to dictate our speech, especially institutions of the state.

I said before that I thought he'd approached the whole thing somewhat hamfistedly and he was also perhaps a bit hotheaded. He certainly didn't seem to approach it calmly and coolly and didn't come across very sympathetically.

Perhaps a woman would have dealt better with the issue.

(NB - I'm not saying he wasn't hard done by - perhaps unfairly - but I don't think he did himself any favours by his approach or self representation)

No one cares what this teacher's personal beliefs are.

What matters is that the teacher's conduct was having a negative impact on the student's education, attendance and wellbeing. That makes him unsuitable as a teacher.

He also decided to share his anti-gay views on Twitter.

Grow up 😂try calling your boss a cunt and tell them you don't believe in others dictating your speech!

Sorry, maggi. The point about compelled speech is still going over your head and I don't feel the urge to explain it to you yet again. Good night.

Telling a child you believe is at risk and in need of a safeguarding referral that they are a burden to their parents and society is so obviously wrong headed to me that I wouldn't let this guy re-arrange my tea caddy, let alone near a vulnerable person.

The fact that teachers (of all political and moral views) feel some sort of weird compulsion to blurt their beliefs at every opportunity to the audience of children who are compelled by law to listen to them, is how insane gender beliefs got into schools in the first place.

I'd quite like it if teachers were told to just crack on with teaching the subject matter they've been employed to teach, regardless of whether they like the individual pupils or not. If that means they also can't spend time sharing their gender critical beliefs, that's a price I'm willing to pay regardless of how much I might agree with them.

So it was the parent that kicked off, not the child, we perhaps now know where the girl got the idea she was a boy in the first place.
Definitely a safeguarding issue.

Eyeroll emoji, sneer

And your argument is that someone else's choice to not use incorrect pronouns is childish?

Exactly, all the tantrums thrown by the students and their parents are of course right think remember.,,

I don't think so. The parent only made complaints about the claimant's behaviour several months after it had started and after she had become aware of what had been happening.

I only referred to it because the OP had mistakenly suggested that one of the issues before the tribunal was whether the school was involved in socially transistioning the girl without her parent's knowledge. The mother knew and was supportive of her daughter.

IIRC correctly the student in question had already complained directly to the claimant herself, but it was a fellow student, supported by a couple of other students as witnesses, who initiated a formal complaint about the claimant to the college.

A member of staff who had a child at the college had also raised concerns about the claimant's social media posts and yet another member of staff had raised issues about comments made by the claimant during a voluntary CPD session on transgender and gender identity issues and the upsetting effects those comments had had on a transitioned member of staff.

All these pre-dated the mother's communication about her "shock and horror" on learning how the claimant had been treating her daughter.

Regarding safeguarding, the claimant's concerns about the girl had already been referred to the college's safeguarding team and they had concluded that his concerns were unfounded

Anyone who wants to understand what actually happened in this case (like the claimant telling the student that transitioning was a waste of NHS resources and his decision to discuss with her the attempted suicide of a relative) should really read section 5 of the judgment I linked to earlier.