The British Doctor who was fired for not using trans pronouns, is headed to the European Court of Human Rights
Dr. David Mackereth who lost his job after refusing to renounce his Christian belief that there are two genders and they are determined at birth, says his case is not an isolated one and is urging others to stand up for what they believe.
He says other medical professionals and people of faith must “stand up” and “affirm truth” in battles over gender ideology.
The 60 year old doctor lost his job as an emergency room doctor in 2019 after objecting to using a hypothetical patient’s preferred pronouns in a training exercise.
In the hypothetical scenario, Mackereth refused to refer to “a six-foot-tall bearded man” as “madam”
Mackereth said “as a Christian in good conscience, I couldn’t do that”, a refusal that eventually led to his dismissal.
Fox News reports: His employer declared that failing to use a patient’s preferred pronouns would fall under “harassment” under the U.K. Equality Act of 2010 and fired him.
The doctor said he would never treat a transgender patient different than any other patient but to him it was a matter of honesty.
“If we are introducing a fundamental principle of dishonesty into medical practice… that has a very big impact on the quality of our health care,” he told Fox News Digital.
After his firing he filed a lawsuit against his former employer for religious discrimination but lost his claim before the Employment Tribunal just three months later. The Tribunal ruled his Biblical beliefs on gender were “incompatible with human dignity.”
“If Christianity isn’t protected by the Equality Act here in the United Kingdom, then surely the Equality Act is worthless,” Mackereth said.
The anti-discrimination law claims to protect citizens from being harassed or discriminated against for their religious beliefs, gender identity, and other characteristics.
The verdict was partially overturned in May 2022 by the Employment Appeal Tribunal, said the Christian Legal Centre, which is supporting Mackereth. However, the Tribunal still held that his firing had been justified and was upheld by the Court of Appeal.
“For a court to declare that Christianity was not illegal but wasn’t protected was more or less saying that Christianity was irrelevant to the modern world,” he told Fox News Digital. “There’s still a lot of Christians around, and we’ve got an awful lot of history behind us.”
While Mackereth said it was obvious that transgender ideology was pervasive in the west, he said it was important to stand up to it.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt whatsoever with the influx of transgender ideology that is gripping the Western world, and it’s gripping the United Kingdom very large. It just seems to be in the United States. There’s no doubt that some ideologies are more equal than others, shall we say. It’s quite clear you can’t give everybody everything they want. But as a Christian doctor, I would put truth at the foundation of what I do. And it’s simply impossible for a person to change sex. So I can’t go along with that,” he said.
Mackereth referred his case to the General Medical Council (GMC), an independent body that keeps a register and sets standards for medical professionals in the U.K. The GMC appeared to side with Mackereth in a letter this week. After reviewing his case, the council determined there was “no evidence to indicate” his fitness to practice was impaired, or his beliefs were a threat to patient’s safety.
He’s going to continue fighting and appeal his case before a European court.
The Christian legal group supporting the doctor says his case could be a first of its kind where a judge has compelled speech for employment. Mackereth argued his case had important implications for everyone about freedom of speech and whether a court can compel an employee to use transgender pronouns.