While working as a disability claim assessor, a Christian doctor was questioned about a 6-ft-tall, bearded transgender woman. However, he was soon fired when his statement regarding the individual was revealed.
While working as a disability claim assessor in Birmingham, England, Dr. David Mackereth arrived at an appointment with recruitment firm manager James Owen. One of the questions the 56-year-old doctor was asked during his interview pertained to the LGBTQ movement.
“I was engaged in working on my second real case when Mr Owen called me out of my work,” Mackereth said. “The purpose was to interrogate me about my beliefs in relation to the use of pronouns. To the best of my recollection, in fact there was no mention of the word transgender during our meeting. We talked about the DWP’s more general policy of using whatever pronoun the client wants.”
Of course, as a Christian, Mackereth politely refused to do so, professing that his faith requires the belief that we are created in the womb as either male or female and cannot change what God has ordained. However, this didn’t go over well.
“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,” Mackereth said. “I told him that, as a Christian, I would not be able to accede to such a request in good conscience.”
According to the Daily Mail, Mackereth was fired from the Fiveways center for refusing to call the 6-ft-tall, bearded man “she,” despite citing his own religious rights. The 56-year-old Christian doctor claims that he was asked whether he would call a burly male customer “madam” if he preferred. When he admitted that he could not violate his faith and conscience, Mackereth was terminated from his position.
He said “transgenderism” was being regarded as “normal” due to political pressure, adding: “I cannot in good conscience go along with those ideas – for example by using people’s chosen pronouns, instead of those naturally pertaining to their sex. As far as I am concerned, to do so would be both dishonest and irresponsible.”
Mackareth has since decided to take the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) before an employment tribunal, suing them for religious discrimination. The doctor alleges that he was suspended solely because he confessed that it would be irresponsible to address individuals based on certain pronouns just because they prefer them. Instead, they attempted to force him to violate his identity as both a Christian and a doctor, as religion and science arrive at the same conclusion.
In a statement, Mackereth accused the DWP of firing him based on his Christian identity. He told reporters that the Bible leaves no room for gender fluidity, as it clearly declares that “God made them male and female,” which has also always aligned with scientific truths.
“In truth, the argument between us arose not because of any realistic concerns over the rights and sensitivities of transgender individuals, but because of my refusal to make an abstract ideological pledge to call any six-feet tall bearded man ‘madam’ on his whim,” Mackereth said. “Throughout this process I kept stressing that my objection to that misuse of pronouns was based on my Christian beliefs and conscience.”
Mackereth says that he was purposefully targeted by the DWP recruitment firm manager for his religious beliefs. He alleges that it has never been indicated to him that he must use a particular language. In fact, he says that the word “transgenderism” was never even mentioned in either the social or medical sense. If it were, it may have been a different conversation entirely.
Mackereth is a veteran in the medical industry, having worked in the NHS for 26 years before his dismissal. He had also accrued valuable experience as an emergency department doctor, a career that now lies in ruins.
The Christian doctor will likely have trouble finding employment, despite his vast medical knowledge and experience. Instead, we are trading the best in their fields for those who will simply appease everyone’s feelings.
