A devout Christian math teacher has been banned from teaching in England indefinitely for misgendering. The 33-year-old, Joshua Sutcliffe, incorrectly addressed a student, who identifies as male, as a female. Based on that—together with other allegations—a professional conduct panel of England’s Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) came to its ruling.
The panel “was satisfied that the conduct of Mr Sutcliffe fell significantly short of the standard of behavior expected of a teacher,” and decided he was therefore guilty of unacceptable professional conduct.
According to Alan Meyrick, the TRA’s decision maker, it was therefore “necessary to impose a prohibition order [on Sutcliffe] in order to maintain public confidence in the profession.”
In an interview with The Telegraph, an emotional Sutcliffe, who has harbored a desire to become a teacher since childhood, said he felt “unrepentant,” and plans to appeal the TRA’s decision in the High Court, as he claims it is a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. If upheld, the ban cannot be reviewed until 2025.
Sutcliffe made his faux pas, which years later ended up costing him his career, while teaching mathematics during a three-year stint at The Cherwell School in Oxford (2015-2018). The TRA ruled that Sutcliffe, while in that school’s employ, had failed to treat one of its pupils with “dignity and respect,” neglecting to use the preferred pronouns of a girl who identified as a boy.
While Sutcliffe has admitted to having praised a group of pupils during a math lesson with an innocuous “well done girl,” he says the ‘offense’ was unintentional, having apologized immediately afterwards.
According to TRA, other evidence points to it being “more probable than not” that the erstwhile teacher had publicly referred to the transgender pupil using female pronouns on other occasions, an allegation Sutcliffe denies.
Yet, while having misgendered a pupil might have been the overriding reason for his banning, Sutcliffe was also found guilty of misconduct for expressing his opposition to gay marriage when questioned by a pupil, and for failing to “consider the potential impact” on his pupils, particularly those who may be from the LGBT community.
Another complaint against the teacher, stemming from a different school, refers to him having played pupils, at a different school, a video (by the American conservative organization PragerU), which contained “inappropriate comments,” referring to one of society’s ills being a lack of masculine men.
For his first ‘offense’ of having misgendered the pupil, Sutcliffe was sacked by The Cherwell School in 2017. He went on to teach at another school but resigned in 2019 after commotion arose over a video on his evangelisation-oriented YouTube channel, in which he had shared views critical of Islam. On his website, which has the same aim, Sutcliffe enumerates various “abominations,” such as abortion, homosexuality, pornography, and Islam.
While legal issues between the teacher and both schools were ultimately resolved, the TRA—based on the allegations leveled against Sutcliffe—decided to investigate him nonetheless, thereby leading to its drastic ruling.
