Christian school worker ‘wrongly sacked for her transgender beliefs’.
Kristie Higgs wins appeal after being dismissed for criticising ‘brainwashing’ of children in school on LGBT+ issues
A Christian teaching assistant who was sacked after expressing her views on transgender books in primary schools has won an appeal.
Kristie Higgs, 46, was dismissed for gross misconduct by Farmor’s School in Fairford, Gloucestershire, in 2019 after sharing Facebook posts criticising plans to teach LGBT+ relationships in primary schools.
In one post, she shared an article on the rise of transgender ideology in children’s books in American schools and commented: “This is happening in our primary schools now.”
She said she made the comments after discovering that the Church of England school attended by her child planned to introduce books on “confusing and harmful gender identity”, including one titled My Princess Boy.
One of her posts referred to “brainwashing our children” and added: “Children will be taught that all relationships are equally valid and ‘normal’, so that same-sex marriage is exactly the same as traditional marriage, and gender is a matter of choice, not biology, so that it’s up to them what sex they are.
“We say again this is a vicious form of totalitarianism aimed at suppressing Christianity and removing it from the public arena.”
Protected characteristic
Mrs Higgs, supported by the Christian Legal Centre, took the school to an employment tribunal, arguing she had been unlawfully discriminated against because of her Christian beliefs.
The school denied dismissing the mother of two because of her religious beliefs and said she was sacked because of the language used in the posts.
In its ruling in 2020, the tribunal concluded that her religion was a “protected characteristic” as defined by the Equality Act, but that the school lawfully dismissed her.
Mrs Higgs appealed against that judgment to the Employment Appeal Tribunal in London, which has now ruled in her favour.
In her judgment, Mrs Justice Eady, president of the Employment Appeal Tribunal, said the question for a future hearing would be whether the school’s decision to sack Mrs Higgs “were because of, or related to, the manifestation of the claimant’s protected beliefs, or were due to a justified objection to the manner of that manifestation”. DT.
