A trans rights activist who spearheaded calls to eliminate women-only restrooms is on a judging panel hearing the case of a Christian teaching assistant who was fired for speaking out against teachings in which primary school students learn they can change gender.
Kristie Higgs, a school pastoral assistant who lost her job after uploading a petition on her Facebook page opposing increasing sex and relationship education, has chosen Edward Lord, a well-known LGBT activist, to counsel a tribunal judge during her appeal.
Mrs Higgs’ lawyers have asked for her removal from the panel, citing worries that she would not receive a fair hearing when the case is heard in London next week.
Lord, who uses the pronouns “they, them, and their,” refuses to resign. Lord, a Liberal Democrat politician who identifies as ‘non-binary,’ has advocated for transgender people to be allowed to use female-only restrooms.
Lord, an elected member of the City of London Corporation, led an equality committee that amended laws in 2019 to allow transgender swimmers unrestricted access to Hampstead Heath’s ladies’ pond.
Lord has been loud on Twitter about allowing trans women to use female-only spaces, but she has been accused of hypocrisy after it was revealed that she is a Freemason, a men-only organization.
Lord was granted an OBE in 2013 and has served as a London magistrate since 2002. They were appointed as a lay member on the employment tribunal circuit last year.
Lord will be allowed to examine witnesses and advise Tribunal Appeal Judge Mrs Justice Eady on whether Mrs Higgs, 45, was wrongfully fired by Farmor’s School in Fairford, Gloucestershire, in 2018.
The mother-of-two was fired after raising concerns about lessons at her nine-year-old son’s Church of England primary school.
Critics were concerned about the ‘No Outsiders’ anti-prejudice lessons for children as young as four, which teach about gender identity through stories about a boy who wants to wear a dress and a book about a red crayon who realizes it is actually blue.
Ms Higgs says that her primary motivation was her belief that her son was too young to understand the concept of sex change. And as a practising Christian, this went against her beliefs.
During a six-hour disciplinary hearing that resulted in her dismissal, a school governor compared her posts to those of a ‘Nazi far-Right extremist’ and it emerged the school had also snooped on her emails.
Mrs Higgs launched an appeal after losing her claim of religious discrimination at a Bristol employment tribunal, which found she had been fairly dismissed because her views could be perceived as transphobic.
The appeal case was due to begin on Wednesday but may be delayed after lawyers from the Christian Legal Centre made a formal request for Lord to be removed from the panel.
Last night, Mrs Higgs said: ‘I am concerned that I will not get a fair hearing. Edward Lord has made many public statements that strongly oppose me and my Christian beliefs which are at the heart of my case.’
Andrea Williams, from the Christian Legal Centre, said the recusal of Lord was a ‘simple and reasonable request that helps avoid any whiff of a stitch-up’. But in an email to the court, Lord said: ‘Whilst I do have views on the topics at the heart of the case, and indeed have expressed some of those views publicly but in an entirely private capacity with no reference to my judicial office, I did not consider them grounds for recusal … When exercising judicial office, my decision-making follows the facts of a case and pertinent law and nothing else.’
A spokesperson for the judiciary said: ‘Judges cannot comment on ongoing proceedings. All judges take a judicial oath, which means they hear cases without fear or favour and find according to the law, personal views do not contribute in any way.’