Teacher ‘sacked after refusing to treat eight-year-old as a boy’ over concerns for child’s welfare

A teacher sacked for refusing to treat an eight-year-old girl like a boy will this week tell an employment tribunal about her serious concerns for the child’s welfare.

She was ordered by the head teacher before the start of term to follow the student’s wishes to “socially readjust” under the guidance of the controversial LGBT charity Stonewall.

This meant calling her by a boy’s name and using male pronouns, and it also involved an ultimately futile attempt to keep her gender transition a secret from her classmates.

The child, supported by his parents, was allowed to wear a boy’s uniform and use the boys’ toilets and changing rooms. Alarmed by the situation, the teacher, referred to as ‘Hannah’ for legal reasons, raised the matter as a safeguarding issue, believing it threatened the child and other pupils in the short and long term.

‘We hear a lot about protected characteristics – what about the child’s right to grow up?’ Hannah told The Mail on Sunday. ‘It’s heartbreaking.’

She was ordered by the headteacher before the start of term to follow the pupil’s wishes for ‘social transition’ under the guidance of LGBT charity Stonewall

She added that children are being encouraged by teachers and schools to believe they are in the ‘wrong body’. She is suing the primary school and Nottinghamshire County Council, claiming she was the victim of whistleblowing and unfairly dismissed in 2022.

The case begins in Nottingham on Tuesday. She said her firing for wanting to protect vulnerable children from harm has torn her life apart and left her with the prospect of never being able to teach again. She had had five happy years at the school and her record was unblemished. But she noted with dismay how ‘education became more and more politicised’.

In 2021, the school adopted training methods developed by Stonewall, which call on teachers to ‘remove any unnecessary gendered language’ from the classroom.

Hannah believes that the toxicity surrounding the transgender debate has created a climate of fear in schools. “No one is prepared to speak out or challenge decisions made without discussion,” she said. She now works in a sandwich shop, ‘where we can discuss these issues more freely’.

She added: ‘Teachers are being bullied into not questioning trans-affirming policies when evidence shows that the actual outcome of the approach is putting children’s welfare at serious risk. I am determined to pursue justice.’

Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, which supports Hannah, said: ‘For years, parents and teachers who have raised safety concerns about these issues have been ignored and disbelieved.’