Christian disability assessor who was sacked by the DWP for refusing to call transgender woman ‘she’ takes fight to High Court – insisting his faith means he should not be forced to address a 6ft bearded man as ‘madam’
- Dr David Mackereth from Dudley accused DWP of unlawfully sacking him in 2018
- Tribunal upheld decision and said his views as ‘incompatible with human dignity’
- Dr Mackereth’s lawyers will take case to the High Court to appeal against ruling
- They believe Maya Forstater case last year sets precedent that protects his views
Dr David Mackereth (pictured) lost his battle against the DWP because he refused to refer to people by their preferred pronoun instead of their biological sex
A Christian doctor who was sacked because he refused to refer to transgender people by their chosen sex or ‘call any 6ft tall bearded man madam’ will take his fight to the High Court.
Dr David Mackereth claims his Christian beliefs are being ‘coerced and threatened’ in a bid to ‘affirm’ the increasing number of patients who identify as transgender.
Dr Mackereth, an A&E doctor with 28 years’ experience, was sacked as a medical assessor for the Department of Work and Pensions in 2018 after refusing to identify clients by their chosen gender instead of their biological sex.
In July 2019, supported by the Christian Legal Centre, he took his case to an Employment Tribunal in Birmingham claiming harassment and discrimination based on his Christian beliefs.
He claimed his employer had breached his right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
But a panel condemned his view of what it means to be male and female as ‘incompatible with human dignity’.
Dr Mackereth said during proceedings that he was asked in a conversation by his line manager: ‘If you have a man six foot tall with a beard who says he wants to be addressed as ‘she’ and ‘Mrs’, would you do that?’
Dr Mackereth, who now works as an NHS emergency doctor in Shropshire, said that in good conscience he could not do this. His contract was subsequently terminated over his refusal.
Bringing his case, the 56-year-old said he was wrongfully sacked for refusing to call people who were born male ‘she’ even if they now identify as female.
The tribunal ‘found that 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’.
As well as claiming religious discrimination, Dr Mackereth said no effort was made to accommodate his beliefs, such as referring transgender clients at Birmingham’s Five Ways assessment centre to another doctor.
An employment judge argued that his biblical beliefs were not protected by the Equality Act and were ‘mere opinion’.
The ruling stated: ‘Belief in Genesis 1:27, lack of belief in transgenderism and conscientious objection to transgenderism in our judgment are incompatible with human dignity and conflict with the fundamental rights of others, specifically here, transgender individuals.’
It added: ‘In so far as those beliefs form part of his wider faith, his wider faith also does not satisfy Grainger [the requirement of being worthy of respect in a democratic society, not incompatible with human dignity and not in conflict with the fundamental rights of others].’
Dr Mackereth’s legal team believe the ruling in favour of Maya Forstater (pictured) which was made at the High Court last year resolved the central issue of law raised in Dr Mackereth’s case
The landmark case for common sense: What was the Maya Forstater ruling?
Maya Forstater lost her job at a think tank in March 2019 after she posted tweets opposing government proposals to reform the Gender Recognition Act to allow people to identify as the opposite sex.
Ms Forstater, 47, who tweeted comments such as ‘woman means adult human female’, was accused of ‘fear-mongering’.
The Central London Employment Tribunal had originally upheld the dismissal following the posts.
Then in June last year, a High Court judge said the original tribunal had ‘erred in law’, but added: ‘This judgment does not mean that those with gender-critical beliefs can ‘misgender’ trans persons with impunity.’
Finding in favour of Ms Forstater, Mr Justice Choudhury said her views ‘may well be profoundly offensive and even distressing’, but said they ‘must be tolerated in a pluralist society’.
The employment tribunal had upheld the dismissal after judge James Tayler described her beliefs as ‘not worthy of respect in a democratic society’.
Her case gained national attention after Harry Potter author JK Rowling voiced her support, and said she disagreed with the tribunal’s decision to throw out her discrimination claim.
In the wake of the ruling, Ms Forstater said she was fighting for everyone’s right to hold an opinion.
Ahead of the hearing, Dr Mackereth, said: ‘My case affects everyone, not just me and Bible-believing Christians, but anyone who is concerned by compelled speech and transgender ideology.
‘The judgment from two years ago said to Christians “you have to believe in transgender ideology”. That is totalitarianism. It made out Christianity to be nothing, the Bible to be nothing. That cannot be allowed to stand.
‘It is a difficult issue for everyone in the NHS. There has been an explosion of patients identifying as transgender. The ideology to affirm them is enforced in a complex, coercive, and threatening way.
‘Everyone in the NHS should be able to say publicly without fear that a person cannot change sex, but instead we are being forced to accept a massive change to our concept of the medical reality of sex, with no scientific basis for that change.
‘No doctor, or researcher, or philosopher, can demonstrate or prove that a person can change sex.
‘Without intellectual and moral integrity, medicine cannot function and my 30 years as a doctor are now considered irrelevant compared to the risk that someone else might be offended.
‘If we are to tell patients that they need to “follow the science”, then we must not tell them that they can change sex.’
Dr Mackereth and the Christian Legal Centre, who are supporting his challenge, will argue that a recent landmark ruling at the High Court in June 2021 will help overturn the decision.
The case found in favour of Maya Forstater, who was sacked from a think tank for saying that people could not change their biological sex.
Finding in favour of Ms Forstater, Mr Justice Choudhury ruled that the original tribunal had ‘erred in law’ when it judged her belief that sex is assigned at birth as ‘incompatible with human dignity’.
In a two-day hearing, lawyers will now therefore argue that the Forstater ruling has resolved the central issue of law raised in Dr Mackereth’s case.
Lawyers for Dr Mackereth will argue the ‘conclusion that Christian religion itself was not a protected characteristic simply cannot be right’.
During a two-day hearing to take place at the High Court, lawyers will argue the ‘conclusion that Christian religion itself was not a protected characteristic simply cannot be right’
Andrea Williams, Chief Executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said: ‘This was an astonishing judgment and one that if upheld will have seismic consequences not just for the NHS and for Christians, but anyone in the workplace who is prepared to believe and say that we are created male and female.
‘The teaching of Genesis 1:27 is repeated throughout the Bible, including by Jesus Christ himself. It is fundamental to establishing the dignity of every human person but is, in a bizarre ironic twist, being branded as incompatible with that dignity.
‘No protection is given to beliefs “incompatible with human dignity” and “not worthy of respect in a democratic society”.
‘In the past this definition has only applied to the most extreme beliefs, such as those of Holocaust deniers, neo-Nazis, and similar. It was and still is shocking that a judge should put the belief in the Bible in the same category.
‘This ruling cannot stand. We are determined to fight as far as possible for justice and for it to be overturned.’
A DWP spokesman said: ‘We cannot comment on ongoing legal proceedings.’
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