A Christian teaching assistant 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, 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 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.”
Mrs Higgs was supported by the Christian Legal Centre to take 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”.
There is no place in our education system for teaching primary school pupils about sex education, especially not subjects such as so-called LGBT+ issues. Teaching such subjects to young children is a blatant attempt at brainwashing young impressionable minds.
There seem to be increasing attempts to sexualise children at an ever younger age, and you have to wonder about the agenda behind this.
The discussion of sex and sexuality should be reserved for a far older age group and done in the home or with the parents’ express permission and oversight of the material to be taught.
Our primary age children should be left to enjoy their innocent years and not be subject to this kind of material.
We should see educators who push this on our children dismissed or sanctioned, not those who attempt to protect our children. We are witnessing increasingly virulent attacks on those trying to oppose the new agenda imposed on us, and all of us who value the traditional way of life and free speech must be prepared to do all we can to defend it, no matter the cost.
