News

A teacher in the US who refused to refer to a “transgender” student by their preferred pronoun has been sacked.

The teacher Peter Vlaming had yelled out “Don’t let her hit the wall!” when he was supervising the student, to prevent her injuring herself.  Vlaming was suspended the next day for not using the biological female’s preferred male pronoun.

He was subsequently sacked when he refused to refer to the student as male in future.

Mr Vlaming has taken legal action against the West Point School Board.

According to a filed complaint, the defendants gave Mr Vlaming an ultimatum: use male pronouns for the female student or lose your job.

But Mr Vlaming would not violate his conscience - and this cost him his job.

He says the school did not have any written policy about pronouns.

The complaint goes on to state that the school forced Mr Vlaming to “take sides in an ongoing public debate regarding gender dysphoria and use pronouns that express an objectively untrue ideological position”.

The complaint adds that “this is not the type of philosophical disagreement in which the government may compel individuals to take sides”.