Doctor takes transgender sacking case to High Court

Disability assessor claims his Christian faith means he has the right not to call a 6ft bearded man ‘madam’

A DOCTOR sacked from his job for refusing to call a transgender woman “she” is taking his case to the High Court claiming that those with “genderritical beliefs” are being “coerced and threatened”.

Dr David Mackereth was dismissed in 2018 as a disability assessor for the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) after refusing to renounce his Christian belief that gender is determined biologically at birth.

He told a manager he would not call a transgender woman a “she”, adding that his faith meant he could not describe “any 6ft-tall bearded man [as] ‘madam’”.

The following year, the Reformed Baptist went to an employment tribunal in Birmingham, claiming he was unfairly dismissed because of his Christain beliefs.

He claimed the DWP’s refusal to allow him to address a client by their biological sex x breached his rights to freedom of thought, hought, conscience and rights to practise ise his religion.

The medic told the hearing he accepted transgender sgender individuals “may find my views to be offensive”, and he did d not want to upset people, but he believed God made humans men or women.

However, tribunal judges sitting in October ber 2019 concluded that Dr Mackereth’s Christian ian belief was not protected ected by the Equality Act ct 2010, but was instead stead “mere opinion” n” so the DWP had d not discriminated against him.

They c oncluded “his beliefs were likely to cause offence and have the effect of violating a transgender person’s dignity or creating a proscribed environment, or subjecting a transgender person to less favourable treatment.”

Now, Dr Mackereth and the Christian Legal Centre, which is supporting his challenge, believe a recent landmark ruling in favour of Maya Forstater, who was sacked from her job at a think tank for saying people cannot change their biological sex, will help them overturn his tribunal ruling in the High Court next month.

Ms Forstater lost her case at tribunal, but won a High Court appeal in 2019, when a judge found “gender-critical” beliefs fell under the Equalities Act, in part because they “did not seek to destroy the rights of trans persons”.

The judge concluded Ms Forstater’s belief that sex is immutable was a philosophical position protected under equality laws because it fell far short of being an oppressive view – such as Nazism or totalitarianism – intended to harm others.

Andrea Williams from the Christian Legal Centre said if Dr Mackereth’s original tribunal ruling was upheld it would have “seismic consequences not just for the NHS and for Christians, but anyone in the workplace who believes and says we are created male and female”.

Ms Williams said the judges’ conclusion that a “lack of belief in transgenderism …. is incom

patible with human dignity and conflict with the rights of others” meant the teachings of the Bible were being placed in a similar category to the beliefs of neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers.

Dr Mackereth, 58, said: “The employment tribunal judgment from two years ago said to Christians ‘you have to believe in transgender ideology.’

“That is totalitarianism.” A DWP spokesman said: “We cannot comment on

ongoing legal proceedings.”