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Dr David Mackereth (pictured) lost his battle with 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 gender or ‘call any bearded man 6ft tall’ will take his fight to the High Court .
Dr David Mackereth says his Christian beliefs are being ‘constrained and threatened’ in a bid to ‘affirm’ the growing 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 for Work and Pensions in 2018 after refusing to identify clients by their chosen gender instead of their gender organic.
In July 2019, backed by the Christian Legal Centre, he took his case to a Birmingham Employment Tribunal for harassment and discrimination based on his Christian beliefs.
He claimed that his employer violated his right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
But a panel condemned her view of what it means to be a man and a woman as “incompatible with human dignity”.
Dr Mackereth said during the proceedings that his supervisor asked him in conversation: ‘If you have a six-foot-tall man with a beard who says he wants to be called ‘she’ and ‘ Ms., “Would you do that?’
Dr Mackereth, who now works as an NHS emergency doctor in Shropshire, said in good conscience he could not. His contract was then terminated following his refusal.
Presenting his case, the 56-year-old said he was wrongfully fired for refusing to call people born male ‘her’, even though they now identify as female.
The court “found that her beliefs were likely to cause offense and have the effect of undermining the dignity of a transgender person or creating a proscribed environment, or subjecting a transgender person to less favorable 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 Center to another doctor.
A labor judge argued his biblical beliefs were not protected by the Equality Act and were “mere opinion”.
The decision said: “Belief in Genesis 1:27, disbelief in transgenderism and conscientious objection to transgenderism in our view are incompatible with human dignity and conflict with the human rights of others, in particular here, transgender people.”
He added: “Insofar as these beliefs are part of his larger faith, his larger faith does not satisfy Grainger either. [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 favor of Maya Forstater (pictured) which was delivered at the High Court last year resolved the central question of law raised in Dr Mackereth’s case
Before the hearing, Dr Mackereth said: ‘My case concerns everyone, not just me and Bible-believing Christians, but everyone concerned with coerced speech and transgender ideology.’
“The judgment two years ago told Christians ‘you have to believe in transgender ideology.’ That’s totalitarianism. It’s made Christianity nothing, the Bible being nothing. not be allowed.
“This is a difficult question for everyone in the NHS. There has been an explosion of patients identifying as transgender. The ideology to affirm them is applied in complex, coercive and threatening ways.
“Everyone in the NHS should be able to say publicly without fear that a person cannot change their sex, but instead we are forced to accept a massive change in our concept of the medical reality of sex, without no scientific basis for this change.
“No doctor, 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 to the risk that someone else might be offended.
“If we are to tell patients they should ‘follow the science’, we shouldn’t tell them they can change their sex.”
Dr Mackereth and the Christian Legal Centre, who support his challenge, will argue that a recent landmark High Court ruling in June 2021 will help overturn the decision.
The case was decided in favor of Maya Forstater, who was sacked from a think tank for saying people can’t change their biological sex.
Ruling in favor of Ms Forstater, Judge Choudhury ruled that the original court had “erred in law” when it found her belief that sex was assigned at birth as “incompatible with human dignity”.
In a two-day hearing, the lawyers will therefore argue that the Forstater decision has resolved the central question of law raised in Dr. Mackereth’s case.
Lawyers for Dr Mackereth will argue that “the conclusion that the Christian religion itself was not a protected characteristic simply cannot be correct”.
During a two-day hearing in the High Court, the lawyers will argue that ‘the finding that the Christian religion itself was not a protected characteristic simply cannot be right’.
Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said: ‘It was a stunning judgment and one which, if upheld, will have seismic consequences not just for the NHS and for Christians, but for everyone on the scene. of work who is ready 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, in a bizarre irony, it is described as incompatible with this dignity.
“No protection is afforded to beliefs ‘incompatible with human dignity’ and ‘unworthy of respect in a democratic society’.
“In the past, this definition applied only to the most extreme beliefs, such as those held by Holocaust deniers, neo-Nazis and others. It was and still is shocking for a judge to place belief in the Bible in the same category.
“This decision cannot stand. We are determined to fight as much as possible for justice and for it to be reversed.
A DWP spokesman said: ‘We cannot comment on ongoing legal proceedings.
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