Mick Hartley

The fightback continues:

A primary teacher who was sacked after refusing to call an eight-year-old schoolgirl by a boy’s name or use male pronouns is to fight a legal test case.

The teacher, who wishes to remain anonymous, is beginning a judicial review against the governors, arguing that the school’s “transgender affirming” policies could harm children.

The case, which is also against the local council, will be heard next week in the High Court in Birmingham. It is thought to be the first time a teacher has taken such action.

The teacher was suspended for several weeks last autumn after refusing to use male pronouns and a male name for a pupil who had been placed in her year 4 class. She argued that it could cause harm to such a young child to unquestioningly encourage the belief that she was “in the wrong body”.

After continuing to challenge the school’s transgender policies, which included letting the child wear a boy’s uniform and to use the boys’ lavatories and changing rooms, she was sacked this year. The teacher, who is appealing against the dismissal, said: “Children are being experimented on, and schools are silencing teachers who disagree with the policy of simply accepting that if parents ask for a child to be treated as the opposite sex, they must go along with that.”

She added: “I believe teachers are being coerced into teaching children lies, and our freedom of speech is being stifled . . . These children are being supported by teachers and schools to believe that they are in the ‘wrong body’ — that their body does not match their gender identity.”

Last September the teacher was told by the school’s head teacher that a pupil in her next year 4 class would be known by a boy’s name. The school decided not to tell any of the other pupils that the child was biologically a girl. The head had agreed to the request of the child’s parents that she be treated as a boy.

Under the policy, backed by advice from the local council, the charity Stonewall and the Church of England diocese, the teacher was told that the child must be treated as transgender.

Along with other staff, she attended “trans-awareness” training sessions at the start of the school year. Materials provided by the local council, including some provided by Stonewall, told staff that 80 per cent of transgender children realise they are transgender before they leave primary school, and that the average age of “self-realisation” takes place at five.

Advice from Stonewall? Say no more.