The government has finally reacted to the DfE’s Guidance for Gender-Questioning Children (19 months after taking power and nearly over two years after the Guidance was produced). Their decision was to bundle it into the Keeping Children Safe in Education Statutory Guidance (KCSiE) for 2026. Unfortunately, this is combined with a 10 week consultation period (again!), but this one seems to be actually final – KCSiE guidance comes out every August, so they will be producing that and it will be hard of them to not put the 2-year old gender-questioning guidance into it. So, what does it mean?

First, the part that’s most relevant to my case is the part on “Considering Requests for Social Transition”, paragraphs 251-275 (with additional sections on single sex sports in paragraphs 94-97 and on single-sex changing rooms, toilets, showers & residential accommodation in paragraphs 104-115). The relevant part for my case is paragraph 251:

...Members of staff should not adopt any changes relating to social transition unless a decision has been made by a school or college in consultation with parents or carers.

That’s pretty clear and is more or lass the same as what the previous Guidance stated. Paragraph 260 repeats this:

Parents and carers should be actively involved and their views treated with importance

260. Parents and carers have the leading role in the lives of their children, and this area should be no exception. Therefore, where a child who is questioning their gender asks for support from a school or college, schools and colleges should engage parents/carers as a matter of priority and treat their views with importance.

The lecturer in the class I was in completely ignored this, agreeing to the child’s request for social transition there and then, without discussing it with anyone. Worse, they actively conspired with the child to keep this breach of safeguarding hidden from the child’s parents and instructed all the LSAs in the class (including me) to collude with them in concealing this safeguarding breach from the child’s parents. And the Designated Safeguarding Lead also conspired in covering up this safeguarding breach after I reported the breach to them (this DSL was the same person who the college later assigned to investigate my case when the college bought disciplinary charges against me for Whistleblowing!)

To be fair, there is a loophole in paragraph 262:

...in the rare circumstances where involving parents or carers would constitute a greater risk to the child than not involving them, the school or college should involve their Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) to determine what action is needed to safeguard the child, before the parents are contacted or any decisions are taken.

This isn’t too different from the previous Guidance, which stated that there were “exceptionally rare” circumstances where telling a child’s parents might be harmful to the child. Note, however, that this paragraph does not allow the school to agree to the child’s request and not inform the parents. Rather it states that the DSL should be involved and should decide on a plan of action before the parent is told, not instead of telling the parent. Or, given the last sentence about before any decisions are taken, possibly agreeing with the child to withdraw their request rather than tell their parents. One or the other.

Obviously, if a child is at risk from their parents then of course a plan must be made, involving social services, the police and various other agencies charged with the protection of children. In short, the same plans that are made when a child is judged to be at risk from their parents in any other scenario. “Risk” is a significant term, not defined, but redolent with the language of safeguarding. It means much, much more than just parental disapproval. And both sets of guidance are agreed that these circumstances are (exceptionally) rare.

Again, in my case, neither the lecturer, nor the DSL, nor the college made any attempt whatsoever to do any of this. Even after I had made a Safeguarding referral.

So, the new guidance basically confirms that the college’s actions were wrong and a breach of safeguarding and so that I was right to make a safeguarding referral. And the college were wrong to ignore that safeguarding referral. So my Whistleblowing to the child’s parents was justified, both under the old guidance and the updated guidance.

There is much more to the guidance than just this, even if we just look at what it says about gender-questioning children. Some of it I agree with (it repeats and endorses the laws stating that all children over 8 must be provided with single-sex toilets, with no exceptions, likewise changing rooms, showers and residential accommodation), some of which I don’t (it changed the policy on primary school children socially transitioning from “never” facilitating it to “very rarely”, a mistake IMHO – primary school children are too young to even adequately understand the idea of gender reassignment, let alone choose to begin it). But that’s all peripheral to my case and so I may put it on Twitter or in an e-mail, but not here.

So, that’s where I stand. My case now looks much stronger as the draft guidance (or, at least, the parts of it relevant to my case) has now been approved and will soon be finalised. Nottingham College were in breach of safeguarding by today’s standards, which were around back when they fired me, albeit in draft form. Presumably, they’ll rely on the draft nature of said guidance, but that’s a difficult argument – draft or not, it was official Department of Education Guidance and if they rejected it, they will need to explain why. Had the DfE also rejected it, they could have used that as a defence, but now they cannot and will have to come up with their own. I’ll inform you when they inform the court – as I’ve mentioned before, they’re dragging their heels, abusing the court process to delay and obfuscate, in the hope of wearing me down.

They won’t succeed in that. But I will be needing more money to continue to use my solicitor to take them to tribunal. So, and I hate asking this, if any of you could contribute to this CrowdFunder, or post information about my case on any Social Media platforms, discuss it amongst friends, anything to publicise my case and point people towards this CrowdFunder, that would be great. I’m prepared to fight this in court, on my own, without legal representation, but I’d have a much better chance were I represented. It’s still a year and a half away, but that’ll go by quickly and I’ll need more money as the months go by.

On a brighter note, Tribunal Tweets have expressed an interest in live-tweeting my case once it starts. For those who don’t know, they live-tweeted the cases of Sandie Peggie, the Darlington Nurses, Jo Phoenix and many others. I feel humbled to be listed amongst such people.

That's all for now. I'll post another update when anything significant happens. Once again, thank you all so much for all your support. I couldn't do this without you.

Hi

I try to update this page as often as possible, but I'm waiting for something to happen. The wheels of justice grind exceedingly slowly.

Last I posted, the preliminary hearing had been postponed and the lawyers were trying to sort it out between themselves. Well, Nottingham College have applied for, and got, an extension to the time allowed for that.

It's hard to see what they want the extra time for. Ultimately, I believe they're deliberately trying to draw things out in the hope that I'll give up and go away. McDonalds tried something similar in the McLibel case, as Keir Starmer knows, having been involved in the case, on the side of the McLibel Two (as was I, in a small capacity).

It didn't work then, and it won't work now. Notably, though, companies only engage in conduct like this when they know they're in the wrong. As McDonalds did in the 90s, and Nottingham College do now.

They will be forced to account for their actions in court, no matter how much they try to delay and prevaricate. Count on it.

Hi everyone

My Preliminary Hearing was supposed to happen a week ago. However, the day before, I got an e-mail from my lawyer stating that it's been postponed. I believe this was at the request of the judge, though I'm not sure.

Whilst they can reschedule, my lawyer and the college lawyer are going to try and thrash out which points they have in common and which are untenable between them. Hopefully this will remove the need for a preliminary hearing altogether or, if not, will at least reduce the amount of points they have to argue about. The college's lawyer used a "deny everything" defence, which they know is untenable for a good deal of the things they denied. If they force a judge to rule that they've done this, the court will be displeased with them having wasted the court's time. Which will be good for me and bad for them.

But I can't rule it out. I'm, again, thinking of the Sandie Peggie case, where the defence did equally stupid things that had no chance of success and did nothing but annoy the court. These are ideologues we're dealing with and acting rationally isn't a feature of ideologues. As we saw at the Sandie Peggie trial where, right up to and including the summation, NHS Fife behaved atrociously.

I have a feeling that the college's lawyers want to behave reasonably, but they have to follow the instructions of their client. It remains to be seen how Nottingham College react. I'll keep you informed when I get more news.

Thank you all again for your donations, it's made it possible for me to fight this. And if you can spare any more, that would help. I may have two years before trial to raise money, but I do need to raise a lot more if I'm to avoid having to defend myself in court. And I get a feeling it'll go by quicker than I imagine.

Stephen Flaherty

Hi everyone

So, I recently posted a multi-post thread on Twitter, which led to a number of new donations – thank you everybody, it’s really appreciated. Amongst the comments was a recommendation to apply to J K Rowling’s Women’s Fund, which has been set up to help fund people in situations like mine. The fund has the astrological symbol for Athena in the title. Athena is the Greek goddess of Wisdom, Magic and also a warrior goddess, a protectress of those fighting for a just cause (unlike Ares, who revelled in any battle out of sheer bloodlust) The latter is probably the reason J K Rowling chose her symbol for her fund. The Celtic equivalent was Brigantia, or Brigid, who became Saint Brigid.

Given the fund is called the J K Rowling Women’s Fund, I didn’t really expect to get a response. However, there’s nothing in the criteria that specifically excludes men from applying, so I did so. It was, however, not something I expected to get a positive response to and, sure enough, a few weeks later I got a polite but firm rejection, explaining that there are many different women who needed help and they couldn’t fund everyone. Again, they didn’t overtly say they don’t fund men, but it seemed pretty clear. I’m wondering if there might be a legal reason for their lack of overtness.

I don’t mind this, incidentally. Applying to the J K Rowling Women’s Fund was always a long shot and I’m sure there are plenty of women in need of their help. I’m only mentioning this as people do sometimes advise me to apply to it. Well, I did and it didn’t go anywhere.

Anyway, back to the Twitter thread that started this. I was posting about Sandie Peggie, a nurse of 30 years experience, who was persecuted, suspended and investigated by NHS Fife when she objected to having to share a changing room with a man. She took them to a tribunal for harassment and discrimination and the NHS Fife management team have been in court the past week or two defending themselves. And they’re doing a really bad job of it.

A number of things come out of this:

1. Two female witnesses – medical professionals, remember – have stated under oath that they don’t know that they’re female!
2. The man who caused all this is a doctor and his feelings, his concerns, his allegations were taken very seriously, whereas Sandie Peggie, a nurse, had her concerns dismissed or overrode, her feelings ignored. Whether this is because she’s a nurse and he’s a doctor or because she’s a woman and he’s a man (and a trans-identifying man at that) is hard to determine. Probably a bit of both.
3. The senior management team at NHS Fife, having done all this, are completely unable to justify their actions and completely unused to being questioned on them. Apart from the ridiculous claims to not knowing what sex Upton is or, as mentioned, pretending not to know their own sex, they have interfered with witnesses during the investigation, discussed Sandie’s case – which was, like all disciplinary cases, confidential – on a WhatsApp group with 20 members, discussed it over e-mail and refused to provide these e-mails to the court when requested, necessitating the case having to be restarted after a 6 month period. They also sent out an almost unbelievably inept press statement that almost got them charged with Contempt of Court, and has got them reinvestigated by the Information Commissioner, over remarks they made about the information they had to be forced to disclose. They’ve had to rewrite it 5 times.

This is relevant to my case in the sense that Nottingham College’s senior management are just as inept and blind to their own failings. I recognised the type when reading the transcripts and commentary on the case. I met some of them during my Disciplinary process. The wilful blindness stands out a mile.

Also similar is the lack of policy. Neither NHS Fife nor Nottingham College have a policy on these issues and so, when a dispute happened, they made it up on the fly with no regard to law or safeguarding. This was done by the EDI lead at NHS Fife. At Nottingham College, it was done by a lecturer on the fly and backed up (after I complained) by senior members of the Safeguarding team.

Part of my Safeguarding referral pointed out that the lack of policy on this issue is not acceptable and that Nottingham College should adopt the policy the Department of Education already have. They responded by firing me. So the next time this comes up, another lecturer will make policy up on the fly and be backed up in it by the Safeguarding team.

I don’t believe this is accidental, nor was it at NHS Fife. Not having an official policy means that unofficial policies are used. Everyone knows what the views of management are and will slavishly follow them but, because it’s not official, nobody can complain about the policy. Until someone refuses. Like Sandy Peggie did at NHS Fife. And me, at Nottingham College. Then they’re forced to defend what they did in court, where their, frankly, insane beliefs and inept management are tested in front of a judge.

It hasn’t been pretty for NHS Fife. Which is good. And I’m hoping it will be equally ugly for Nottingham College.

Anyway, that’s all for this month. Thank you all so much for your help with this and I’ll post again closer to the time of the preliminary hearing.

Steve

Hi everyone

It’s been a while since the last update. That’s because I was waiting for the college’s response to my claim, so that I would have something to write about. Well, after much longer than I thought it would take, I received the college’s Grounds of Resistance on the 28th May, 20 days after they submitted them to the Employment Tribunal. I've been waiting to hear from my lawyer before updating, and yesterday I did, when we submitted the Statement of Loss (detailing how much I estimate the college’s actions to have cost me - nearly £100,000, if you’re interested, plus an undetermined sum for “Injury to Feelings” and reputational damage).

Back to their response: Basically, they're denying everything. I'm guessing this is a legal tactic, a kind of "throw it against the wall, and see what sticks" scattergun approach. It'll waste a lot of the court’s time also, and I guess that's part of their strategy. Much like the case of the Darlington Nurses, whose day in court has been postponed again and again due the the NHS Trust not complying with the demands of the court in time. Or Sandy Peggie, whose case overran the time allotted to it when Fife NHS Trust did similar, and so it was adjourned for 6 months. I don't have enough experience in court to know whether or not this is SOP, though I note that McDonalds, too, denied everything when they sued two unemployed activists for libel in the McLibel Trial (I was there for some of that, so I know about this first hand).

As a lot of people have said, the process is the punishment. But none of the above-mentioned people gave up, and I won't either.

Their denials are ludicrous. Firstly, they're layered. For example, they say that my informing the mother that they were socially transitioning her daughter (and conspiring to keep this secret from her) doesn't count as whistleblowing because they say it wasn't in the Public Interest, that I was wrong to think it was in the Public Interest, and also that I was wrong to think that the college was committing any unlawful acts. And, even if this is wrong, I was wrong to think there was any risk to the child’s well-being. And, even if, I was wrong to think that the college was deliberately concealing information. And, even if does count as a whistleblowing disclosure, that's not why they sacked me. And so on.

Now some points may be at least arguable. But most of them are ridiculous. The last point, for example, is particularly ridiculous as I have a copy of my letter of dismissal which specifically says I was fired for "disclosing a sensitive personal matter relating to the student's gender identity", which directly contradicts the assertion they're making now that they didn't fire me for this. In a similar vein, most of the rest of their denials can be dealt with. For example, they're saying that the views I exhibited are not Protected Beliefs, despite the Forstater judgement, not to mention the considerable number of successful cases that have used that judgement since then. 

All of this will be bought up at the preliminary hearing which, whilst I'm reasonably certain won't solve anything, should result in their most ridiculous defences being struck out.

But in order to do any of this, I need funds. Preparing an argument, anticipating and writing responses to any possible counter-arguments and making all of these points in court - all of this costs money, I'm afraid.

I know a lot of you have contributed before. And I know times are hard and money is short for everyone. But if you could see your way to making a contribution to my CrowdJustice Account, it would really help. This is an important area of law, not least because Nottingham College aren't the only ones doing this. A Tribunal judgement that clearly stated that it was illegal would go a long way to ensure that colleges (and schools) actually follow the law when dealing with gender-questioning children.

You wouldn't have thought that was too much to ask, that public institutions, in receipt of public money follow the law. And yet, here we are.

Thanking you all so much for your help. The next update will likely be in July or August, before the Preliminary hearing. And then there'll be one afterwards, which will be more significant. See you then.

Hi everyone.

Well, yesterday I finally got a response from the Employment Tribunal. They've approved my claim and sent it off to my erstwhile employers, who have until the 9th May to provide a response. There's some technical stuff to be done after that - exchanging documents and so forth - and then there's a preliminary hearing on the 5th September, nearly a whole year after this all began. Assuming nothing is settled (which is almost certain), there will be a full hearing on the 9th August 2027 - over 2 years from now! This is later than I'd expected (I was thinking a year to 18 months, not 28 months). Apparently, there's still a backlog from COVID.

This gives me 28 months to raise as much money as I can to fight the case, which is good. But I had hoped it'd be over sooner. Ah well.

On a different (but related) topic, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the usage in the Equality Act of the words "man", "woman" and similar refer to biological men and women respectively. In short that "transwomen" are men and "transmen" are women, which is the reverse of the position pushed by most trans activists.  This welcome affirmation of sanity and common sense by the highest court in the UK - which means it can't be appealed and therefore becomes settled law - has far reaching (and welcome) implications for such issues as: women's rights to single sex spaces; their right to only be searched by a female police officer; their right to receive intimate care only from a female carer; women's sports; and a number of other issues. It is peripherally relevant to my case, as it rules that "transgirls" are boys and "transboys" are girls, which closes down some possible arguments my ex-employers might have used about the child I was trying to protect. But it is, as I say, peripheral, as my case is more about parental responsibility and Nottingham College's undermining and violation of such, which is a different (though related) issue.

It does, however, mark a welcome return to sanity from the country's highest court. The effects are likely to ripple through the country over the next few months. Certainly, the cases of the Darlington Nurses or Sandie Peggie at NHS Fife will be affected. If the NHS trusts involved had any decency, they'd concede they were wrong now and settle, thereby avoiding a long and costly court case. In reality, they're likely to drag it out till the bitter end. As will my ex-employer, no doubt.

I'll keep you updated as and when thinks happen. Over the next 2 years(!)

Thank you all, again, for all your support. I couldn't have done this without you.

Quote of the day: "No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does... The big moments are gonna come. You can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are."

OK, the Crowdfunder has just gone over £5,000, the initial target, with 10 days still to go. This is great, it means I will be taking Nottingham College to court and, as I can now pay for lawyers to prepare and argue my case, have a much better chance of holding them to account for their misdeeds.

This was only possible, of course, because of the generosity of all those who donated. Thank you all so much, you have made this possible.

The stretch goal has been set at £15,000. This figure was an estimate of the costs of getting a barrister to review Nottingham College's reply to my submission, prepare and advise on how to respond and representation at the preliminary hearing. All of this is a few months down the line and so there is plenty of time to grow the Crowdfunder before then.

I will keep you all informed of any future developments.

Thank you all, again, for your support. I couldn't have done this without you.

Hi, this should really have gone in the last update, but I forgot, and it's not possible to edit them.

I've done a podcast about my case. It's at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfXIgJpxXvk. A lot of people have told me I came across well, which is good because it didn't feel like it - I was nervous as hell. Anyway, have a look, see what you think.

Hi everyone

OK, my lawyer has finished drafting my tribunal submission and it was submitted yesterday. So, it’s started, I’m taking my ex-employer to court!

For those who don’t know what happens next (like me, up until yesterday), firstly the tribunal will check that the claim form has been filled in correctly, which can take several weeks depending on how busy the tribunal is. It’s then sent to my ex-employer, Nottingham College, who will have 28 days to send a response with their grounds of resistance to the tribunal, which is forwarded to us. They also schedule a preliminary hearing, which will usually be at least 6 weeks after the response. 

Once I receive the response, I will need to instruct a barrister to advise on what to do next, prospects of success, strategy, etc. All of this will cost money and it’s likely I’ll have to set a stretch goal.

But first, I need to achieve my initial goal. I’m c. £1,400 short of the money I need to even begin doing this. The costs so far have been paid by myself, but I can’t really do that any more – I’ve just lost my job, money is kind of tight. So I need the crowdfunder to raise another £1,400 in the next 2 weeks, or it will be null and void. Hopefully, things will slow down after I get the initial sum – as mentioned above, there will be lots of delays and the funder can build slowly. But that depends on me getting the initial sum.

I hate asking for money, but I’m afraid I have to. If you could post, tweet or otherwise inform people about my crowdfunder, that would really help. And if you could manage a donation, even a small one, that would also help a lot.

Thank you all of you for your help. I couldn’t do any of this without you. And I think it’s important. Holding Nottingham College to account for hiding this child’s social transition from her parent will set a precedent. It will demarcate parental responsibility and the limits of where, and how much, the college (or any other college or school) can encroach on that. It’s clear that they won’t stop doing things like this unless a court forces them to. So help me bring that verdict against them.

Once more, thank you all so much for your help.

Hi everyone

Well, this page has only just launched and I'm writing an update. Missed out from the case page was that I have retained Jon Heath of J R Levins to represent me on this case. I quoted from him on the case page, without making it clear that he's my solicitor. He has a lot of experience in Employment Law, including cases similar to mine, so I'm confident in his expertise.