Teacher, Joshua Sutcliffe, suspended and facing the sack for mistakenly calling transgender pupil a girl while praising him for schoolwork

A TEACHER has been suspended and could be sacked after ‘accidentally’ calling a transgender pupil who identifies as a boy a ‘girl’ during a lesson.

Joshua Sutcliffe, 27, was suspended when the pupil’s mother lodged an official complaint six weeks after the event.

Mr Sutcliffe says he told the teenager and a friend ‘well done girls’ when he spotted them working hard and apologised when corrected by the pupil.

The maths teacher will face a formal disciplinary hearing this week and could face misconduct charges for ‘misgendering’.

He : “I was absolutely shocked to be told by the head that I was under investigation. I didn’t know what was happening. It was surreal, Kafkaesque.

“I said it was only one incident for which I had apologised, but he insisted the investigation would go ahead.

“I had always tried to respect the pupil and keep a professional attitude as well as my integrity, but it seemed to me that the school was trying to force me to adhere to its liberal, Leftish agenda.”

Mr Sutcliffe, who is a Christian, added he had told senior staff carrying out the probe at the Oxfordshire school he believes it is not wrong to call a person born a female a girl but did not use the term on purpose as he is a professional.

However, he added he feels it is a breach of his human rights to force him to use ‘he’ or ‘him’ when referring to a pupil born a female.

Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre which is supporting Mr Sutcliffe in the case, said: “This is one of a large number of cases we are encountering where teachers are finding themselves silenced or punished if they refuse to fall in line with the current transgender fad.”

The headteacher of the school said it could not comment due to ongoing disciplinary matters.