Teacher Enoch Burke has lost a High Court challenge over the composition of a panel that will hear his appeal against his dismissal from Wilson’s Hospital School in Westmeath following his refusal to address a transgender pupil with the pronoun “they” or by their new name.
Mr Burke claimed a member of the three-person appeals panel, Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland (ASTI) general secretary Kieran Christie, is a “promoter of transgenderism”.
Mr Justice Conor Dignam was satisfied that a reasonable person would not have an apprehension that Mr Christie is personally or objectively biased, as distinct from through his association with his ASTI position.
In his challenge to the panel, Mr Burke claimed, among other things, that Mr Christie was “an activist for transgenderism” within the ASTI and that under his leadership, ASTI was “becoming a vehicle for the promotion of transgenderism”.
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Mr Burke said Mr Christie had presented an ASTI achievement award to a teacher in Cork who helped a group of students to establish a sexuality and gender acceptance group in their school.
Mr Christie had also worked closely over the years with Transgenderism Equality Network Ireland (TENI), which Mr Burke said, was evidence that he was a promoter of transgenderism within the ASTI.
The judge said the only evidence of an association with TENI came from Mr Christie himself who said he met a representative of the organisation once in 2016, when he attended a seminar which included a talk on how schools might deal with transgender children.
“One meeting with a TENI representative seven years ago would not cause the reasonable person to consider that Mr Christie has a close working relationship with TENI over many years,” the judge said.
In relation to the claim of objective bias against Mr Christie personally, on the basis that he presented an award to a teacher, the judge said a reasonable observer would readily appreciate that Mr Christie was acting in his capacity as general secretary in doing so.
Mr Christie is one of eight members of the ASTI Awards Committee that decides on such awards.
In the judge’s view, no reasonable person would believe on the basis of those facts that Mr Christie was personally biased against Mr Burke’s position.
The judge said there was “not even a starting point” for his claim Mr Christie promotes transgenderism.
Mr Burke, he said, does not say what he means by being “a promoter of” or “an activist” for transgenderism, which Mr Burke defines as “the ideology that each person has a ‘gender identity’ which may or may not align with their biological sex”.
“It is abundantly clear that Mr Burke has his ideology based on his religious belief and it appears that he believes that anyone who does not subscribe to the same position as him on this issue has a contrary ideology, ie. transgenderism,” he said.
Even if transgenderism is, as defined by Mr Burke, an ideology, it is possible and even commonplace for a person to not subscribe to a particular ideology but it does not follow that they subscribe to, let alone promote, or are active in the cause of another ideology, he said.
The reasonable person will appreciate that a person can be prepared to accede to a request by an individual, be it an adult or child or the child’s parents, to be called by a different name or referred to by a different pronoun without being a promoter of, or activist for, an ideology, he said.
The Oireachtas has, by making provision in the Gender Recognition Act 2015 for a person to change gender from what is recorded on their birth certificate, acknowledged that a person’s biological sex may not necessarily be the same as that person’s gender. The statement by Mr Christie in relation to this reflects the legal position in the State, the judge said.
The judge also said comments in a newspaper interview by the deputy general secretary of ASTI, Diarmuid De Paor, saying students should be generally referred to by their preferred pronoun was general in nature and representing no more than a general position.
The comments were not sufficient to ground a serious question that there is a reasonable apprehension of bias, he said.
Mr Burke said ASTI was also a member of the Children’s Rights Alliance which he said made the very “disturbing” recommendation that legislation be introduced allowing children over 16 to change their gender without their parents’ consent.
The judge said it was clear from the legal authorities that the “mere fact of membership of an association” does not in itself fix the member with ownership of the views of the association.
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