A Christian teacher in the United Kingdom who told her students that identifying as LGBT was a sin has lost a High Court challenge over her firing as a professional conduct panel concluded that her remarks amounted to unprofessional conduct.
High Court Justice Beverly Lang dismissed the appeal filed on behalf of Glawdys Leger on Thursday. The 44-year-old modern languages teacher was fired from Bishop Justus Church of England School in Bromley in May 2022 over comments she made during a presentation to year-seven students a few months earlier in February 2022.
The teacher was asked to teach about human rights during a religious studies lesson. The lesson included a PowerPoint on LGBT topics and “protected characteristics,” according to court documents. Leger explained her Christian beliefs to the class and why she thought LGBT ideology contradicted those beliefs.
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Court documents included a statement that one student, advised by her mother to note down any “transphobic” remarks, recorded Leger’s comments, which the mother considered “very distressing.”
Leger was accused of making “inappropriate comments” to students, such as saying identifying as LGBT is “not fine” and a “sin,” that “God should be before LGBTQ+,” “people will always be seen by God as having their birth gender,” and that trans-identified individuals are “just confused.”
In her order dismissing the teacher’s case, Lang wrote that the panel’s findings were “justifiable and proportionate sanction for her unacceptable professional conduct.” She found there was “no breach” of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
According to the Christian Legal Centre (CLC), which represented the teacher, Leger objected to the content of year-seven lessons, which had been incorporated into religious education classes and included what they say are “extreme content on gender identity with themes that begin to suggest to children that humans can be born in the wrong body.”
The curriculum also introduced gender identities such as pansexual, asexual, intersex and transgender.
A student later lodged a complaint after documenting the remarks, and the school suspended Leger in March 2022 before dismissing her two months later.
In December 2023, the Teaching Regulation Agency published the panel’s finding, which did not prohibit her from teaching again.
Leger argued before the High Court that her statements needed more context and that publishing the results infringed on her privacy. She contended that the school’s requirement to offer a broad and balanced curriculum did not extend to her as an individual teacher.
In the High Court judgment, Lang noted that the panel’s decision went “no further than it considered justified” and would be removed from public view after two years. The judge also cited the panel’s view that while Leger’s remarks “lacked respect for the right of others,” they did not stem from “a lack of a tolerance” and were not intended to cause distress.
Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said Leger “cared deeply about the children in her care and wanted to teach them about the tolerance and hope that is found in the Christian faith.”
“For that she has been punished and even risked loss of her license to teach,” Williams added.
