‘God made us male and female... that can’t be changed’
Doctor in tribunal claims transgenderism is delusional
THE Black Country doctor at the heart of a row over the use of language in addressing transgender patients has sparked national headlines. But David Mackereth, from Dudley, is unrepentant. He claims people who change their gender may be mentally ill – and that gay marriage is not legitimate.
The medic, who says he was sacked for refusing to call a sex-change man ‘she’ or a woman ‘he’, says transgenderism should be treated as a mental health condition.
A Birmingham employment tribunal has heard claims he told his manager that he would not “call any 6ft bearded man ‘madam’”. The former A&E doctor alleges he was then suspended from his job as an assessor at the Department for Work and Pensions in Five Ways, Birmingham.
Manager James Owen disagrees. He says Dr Mackereth was neither sacked nor suspended, and that the doctor simply chose to no longer work.
Whatever the outcome – a ruling will be made in the coming weeks – at the heart of the matter are the medic’s Christian convictions.
The 56-year-old says the DWP discriminated against his deeply-held religious beliefs, according to which ‘God’ created man and woman.
“It is impossible, impossible for a person to change sex,” he told the Post. “I am a Christian and in good conscience cannot do what the DWP is requiring of me.
“They have the right to declare themselves male or female but they have no right to tell anybody else to address them in that way. They have no right for me to go along with that.
“You cannot force me to speak in a certain way. If you have compelled speech, then you are living in a dictatorship.
“No doctor or nurse should be forced to use language in a certain way, if they believe that language is dishonest.
“To use pronouns in such a dishonest way would sever my relationship with my saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, and I cannot go there.”
In a statement put before the tribunal, Dr Mackereth has acknowledged that there are people who feel they need to swap sex.
He said: “A small number of such people has always existed. Until recently, such a belief was considered by medics to be delusional and a symptom of a medical disorder.
“It is only recently that transgenderism has been recognised as normal, and such delusional beliefs accepted at face value.
“What is responsible for that change is political pressure, not scientific evidence. I appreciate that in the present political climate, some people,
including some of those who believe they are transgender, may find my beliefs to be offensive.
“However, in a free society, this is not a good enough reason to censor my beliefs or coerce me to act contrary to my conscience.
“Moreover, as a doctor, my responsibility is always to act in good conscience in the best interest of the patients, not to adopt various fancies, prejudices, or delusions, to avoid offence at all cost.”
He added that his inherent belief is that transgenderism is a “rebellion against God, which is both pointless and sinful”.
Dr Mackereth, a Reformed Baptist, started a training course in May to become a health and disability assessor for the DWP, a role that would have meant interviewing, and then writing independent reports about the health of, those claiming disability benefits.
His instructor stated that reports must only refer to the “client” by the sex that person identified themselves as.
“I said that I had a problem with this,” he explains. “I could have kept my mouth shut but it was the right time to raise it. The tutor took me aside and said he had passed my comments up the chain to the DWP.”
He says he then received an email from Advanced Personnel Management, the agency that employed him, and would have hired him out to the DWP.
They explained he could undergo training about the department’s policy, but the DWP was adamant that any report or contact with clients should refer to them in their chosen sex, or it “could be considered to be harassment as defined by the 2010 Equality Act”.
The doctor replied that “in good conscience” he could not conform to those demands, and so the contract was terminated between them.
“Firstly, we are not allowed to say what we believe,” the medic says. “Secondly we are not allowed to think what we believe. Finally, we are not allowed to defend what we believe.
“If we are no longer allowed to say that you believe sex and gender are the same and are determined at birth, everyone who holds my views can be sacked on the spot under this Act. I’m not an isolated case.”
The recruitment company, which
is also being sued for religious discrimination, says the doctor’s beliefs are not compatible with human dignity. We believe that there is such a condition as gender dysphoria, where there are people certainly who have an intense feeling that they are a person who is a different sex or different gender from their biological sex.”
Dr Mackereth says: “I’m not denying the existence of this condition, and we know for some people this is very distressing indeed.
“We believe that these people need to be handled sensitively and with the utmost compassion – but to argue that a person can be trapped in the wrong body or that someone can change their sex is taking things too far.”
Dr Mackereth, who also says he does not believe that gay marriage is legitimate, says that transgenderism “being regarded as normal” is the result of political pressure,
Asked whether he thinks transgender people are mentally ill or deluded, he says: “Well, I can’t speak on my own authority but what I can say first of all is that God made us male and female, and I believe that can’t be changed. But, secondly, the medical profession has described this as a mental health condition.
“It is only recently, because of political pressure and because of political correctness, that things have changed.
“I’m not doubting that a person could live in a way and present themselves as a woman if they’re biologically a male. But forcing me to believe that is quite wrong.
“When science can’t change a person’s sex, but the law can, I find that very confusing.”
You cannot force me to speak in a certain way. If you have compelled speech, then you are living in a dictatorship
Dr David Mackereth