Teacher Loses Tribunal After Refusing to Affirm Girl’s ‘Transition’

Pupils return to school in Kelso, Scotland, on Aug. 11, 2020. (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

A teacher has lost his employment tribunal case after he was fired for refusing to “affirm” the chosen male identity of a 17-year-old girl.

Kevin Lister had an 18-year career in education and had taught at New College in Swindon for just over a year when the girl’s friend complained about his questioning her wish to “transition” to live as a boy.

Mr. Lister told The Epoch Times he had serious safeguarding concerns about the “pro-trans” ethos of the college and for the young girl herself, and did not think her wish to socially transition should go unchallenged.

“To me, there was a serious risk that she was going to self-medicate with cross-sex hormones,” he said, adding that he was concerned the girl’s parents might not know about or be supportive of her transition and that when he asked the school about this, they did not give him a clear answer.

He said he encouraged the teenager, identified as Student A in the hearing, to enter a maths competition for girls, which she did. On one occasion when he coached her after school, the girl became emotional and he asked if it was the transition that was upsetting her.

“She said it was, and I told her, ‘You know, you’ve got to make sure you’re not getting pushed into it by anyone else, and I told her to go away and think about it.”

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It was around four months after this, in January 2022, that the girl’s friend—identified as student B—put in a complaint about him for incidents including writing the girl’s birth name on the whiteboard and for pointing at her to answer questions to avoid using her chosen name, as well as for encouraging her to enter the maths contest.

Mr. Lister had to attend a “transgender training session” given by a teacher from the college whose own daughter was identifying as a boy. Mr. Lister said the woman was completely pro-trans and no questioning of the ideology was permitted.

“When I did my teacher training, we were told that safeguarding was the number one concern. And now, it’s not safeguarding, it’s the Equality Act.”

‘In Breach of the Nuremberg Code’

“This transgender ideology is completely non-evidence-based—there is no evidence whatsoever to support it,” he said, pointing out that the first known experiments to try and change people’s sex were carried out in Auschwitz by Nazi doctor, Josef Mengele.

“All the subjects died, obviously. [It was] absolutely horrific,” he said, pointing to the 10-point code of medical ethics, known as the Nuremberg Code, which was drawn up to prevent such experimentation on people from happening again.

“Trans ideology fails every one of those points in the Nuremberg Code,” he said. “What we are seeing today is large-scale experimentation on a scale that Josef Mengele could never have envisaged.”

“About half of the people who socially transition will go on to medically transition,” he said, adding that even if a child only wishes to socially transition, “this is absolutely not without harm. It opens them up to all sorts of exploitation from predatory adults.”

He said there were several students at the college claiming to be “trans” who were being “supported” by the teacher in question, leading him to raise a safeguarding concern, which led to the college raising a safeguarding concern about him.

Union Withdrew Support

Mr. Lister represented himself at the six-day hearing after the National Education Union withdrew its support on a technicality and the Free Speech Union declined to represent him. He also lost the insurance policy on his mortgage as the company said he had only a 5 percent chance of winning his case.

Mr. Lister plans to appeal the judgment against him as he wants to clear his name after being added to the disclosure and barring service register, meaning he cannot get another teaching job as he is regarded as unsuitable to work in a school.

The 61-year-old now makes a living doing private tuition and has also worked as a van driver since losing his job. But he stressed the case is not about his individual story and urged people to see the bigger picture.

His opinion is that there is a huge push to make young people believe they are “trans,” and that this could be part of a social media disinformation campaign originating in China or Russia to help weaken the West through destroying the family unit and causing division in society.

“If you wanted to sew discord across the Western world, you couldn’t find a better way of doing it. It’s dividing families, friends, and communities.”

Mr. Lister accepts this is a personal and unprovable theory, but points to the huge conflicts of interest between politicians who uncritically champion the concept of trangenderism while accept funding from the pharmaceutical companies who make vast sums from selling cross-sex hormones.

‘Follow the Money’

“People need to follow the money on this,” he said, pointing to Swiss company Ferring Pharmaceuticals, which has made several substantial donations to the Liberal Democrats, including almost £1.5 million between 2013–2016.

“Why would a Swiss pharmaceutical company want to donate £1.5 million to a British political party?” Mr. Lister said,  pointing to the fact that Ferring makes both puberty blockers and testosterone.

The Liberal Democrats have been arguably the most enthusiastic of the main parties in promoting transgender ideology, with leader Ed Davy causing widespread outrage with his assertion that women can “quite clearly” have a penis.

‘Humiliating’ for the Student, College Claims

At the tribunal hearing, the college principal and chief executive at the time, Carole Kitching, said it was the way Mr. Lister’s “gender critical” beliefs had presented that led to his dismissal in September 2022, rather than the views themselves, which are protected as a “philosophical belief” under the Equality Act.

Ms. Kitching said that when Mr. Lister wrote the girl’s birth name on the board, “This was humiliating for the student, and I don’t understand why you wrote their name on the whiteboard when all they had to do was go and see another teacher.”

“You were suspended for failing to treat Student A with respect by consistently humiliating them in the class by your refusal to treat them with dignity and respect, which is required by all members of staff.”

The tribunal ruled against Mr. Lister, finding that the college had dismissed him for misconduct, and that it had not discriminated against him.

The judgment found: “His clean record was not in dispute, but his behaviour had amounted to discrimination which was an example of gross misconduct under the Disciplinary Policy [of the college]. The assertion that the claimant had not received management guidance was rebutted on the basis that the Gender Reassignment Policy clearly had indicated the manner in which he ought to have behaved following the student’s request in September 2021.”

Guidelines for schools in England issued by the Department for Education last December state there is no “general duty” for a school to facilitate the “social transition” of a pupil, and stress that this is “not a neutral act” and carries “a significant risk of harm.”

The guidelines also state that teachers should not be compelled to use a pupil’s preferred pronouns, but they were not in place when Mr. Lister worked in the college, which had its own policy that formed part of his contract.

Mr. Lister said: “Those guidelines are just guidelines—and unions are already starting to recommend that they shouldn’t be followed,” adding that he believes they will be binned with the expected change of government this year.

As well as planning his appeal, he is working with The Bad Law Project to bring a judicial review against the education department for failing to uphold sections 46 and 47 of the Education Act, which forbid partisan teaching in schools.