Doctor Takes On Gender Juggernaut

A Christian doctor suing the British government says he was sacked last year after a recruitment agent asked whether or not he would call a six-foot tall bearded man "madam".

Dr David Mackereth is challenging Britain's Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) for deeming him "unfit" for employment, under Britain's 2010 Equality Act, because he refused to refer to clients by their chosen gender instead of their biological sex.

The 56-year-old father of four from the UK's West Midlands had worked as an emergency department doctor for 26 years in the National Health Service (NHS) when he was appointed to the DWP as a health and disability assessor in June 2018.

Only a few days after his new appointment, he was called away from his work for an urgent meeting with James Owen from the employment agency which had successfully recruited him for the role. Mr Owen told him of his unease about a sceptical comment Dr Mackereth had reportedly made during an earlier training session, where he was told that his assessment reports must refer to clients by their preferred pronouns, irrespective of their biological sex.

Dr Mackereth said that Mr Owen's purpose in summoning him to his office was "to interrogate me about my beliefs in relation to the use of pronouns".

He added: "That discussion culminated in Mr Owen asking me the following question – 'Let's just summarise this. If you have a man six feet tall with a beard, who says he wants to be addressed as "she" and "Mrs" – would you do that?'

"I am quite sure this is exactly what he said to me, in substance if not verbatim."

Dr Mackereth felt he was being forced to do something that went against his conscience. "What I am saying about pronouns is not going to affect the quality of the assessment that I do," he said. "I don't object to doing assessments on transgender people."

However, he asserted: "I don't believe a person can change their gender. It's not scientifically or medically possible."

Mr Owen subsequently wrote twice to Dr Mackereth asking him "one final time" whether he would comply with the DWP's requirements.

Dr Mackereth, a Reformed Baptist, declared: "I am a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. He made all things including/especially mankind. We read that He made them 'male and female' (Genesis chapter 1 verse 27). In good conscience I believe that gender is determined by biology and genetics, and I see no reason to be in any way ashamed of that."

A week later, Dr Mackereth was sacked.

The news of his treatment was widely reported internationally. It prompted American conservative commentator Rod Dreher to exclaim: "Wait a minute. Holding the view that people are born male or female is now a theological belief? Do you see how radical this is? Here's the theology angle: this doctor was fired because he blasphemed against the militant new religion."

Dr Mackereth is currently challenging the DWP's decision to terminate his employment. At the recent employment tribunal hearing his case, the DWP's representative Robert Moretto has put it to the doctor that refusing to address transgender individuals by their preferred pronouns violates their dignity and constitutes harassment under Britain's equality laws.

Reflecting on his plight, Dr Mackereth has said: "By stating what has been believed by mankind for centuries – namely that gender and sex are determined at birth – you can come under ferocious attack. If we are no longer allowed to say that you believe sex and gender are the same and are determined at birth, everyone who holds my views can be sacked on the spot under this Act. I'm not an isolated case."

The doctor's conflict with the DWP is not the first time he has found himself in trouble with the authorities.

Back in the 1980s, during his first year as a medical student at St Andrews University, Scotland, he became a Christian. Until then he had understood that abortion ended human life; but, after his conversion, he saw "for the first time the true value of every person, that is, all human beings as creatures made for the glory of God and in his image".

"You may not agree with that, but that is what radically changed my mind," he said.

In 1986 he was assigned to observe an abortion procedure. However, he told the female doctor in charge that he would not be able to stay on account of his convictions.

She flew into a rage and shouted, "You are mad! Civilisation would collapse if we all held your views."

"Let me be mad, then," he said. A formal complaint was later lodged about his behaviour.

Dr Mackereth recalls that many of his fellow medical students shifted from being mainly pro-life to accepting abortion as an unexceptional routine procedure.

He wrote: "Before that year the small group of Christians of whom I was one were aware, having spoken to many, that most of our colleagues felt that abortion was wrong. By the end of the year there appeared to be a hardening of hearts. We were being trained to kill unborn children without mercy, and almost no one objected."

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