Employee who objected to employer’s pronouns policy was fairly dismissed

In the recent case of Orwin v East Riding of Yorkshire Council, an employment tribunal had to decide whether an employee who, in response to the employer’s introduction of a pronoun policy, added ‘XYchromosomeGuy/AdultHumanMale’ to his email signature had been unfairly dismissed and unlawfully discriminated against because of his gender critical beliefs.

Background

The Claimant was employed by East Riding of Yorkshire Council and holds gender critical beliefs, namely that sex is biologically immutable and binary. Such beliefs are protected from discrimination under section 10 of the Equality Act 2010.

His employer introduced a new policy which gave employees the option to add pronouns to their email signature. The guidance to the policy provided some examples of pronouns, but it did not specify which were acceptable.

The Claimant objected to the new policy and on the basis of his view that it supported the idea of self-identification of gender, which conflicted with his gender critical beliefs. As above, he then added “XYchromosomeGuy/AdultHumanMale” to his email signature. The employer told the Claimant to remove this on several occasions, but each time he refused to do so. Consequently, after carrying out a disciplinary process, the Claimant was dismissed.

Findings

Ultimately the Claimant’s claims were rejected by the Tribunal.

The Tribunal acknowledged that the Claimant’s beliefs were protected under the Equality Act but found that:

1. 1. there was not a sufficiently close causal link between the Claimant’s email signature and his gender critical beliefs
   2. the employer did not treat the Claimant as it did because of his protected belief, but because of the inappropriate expression of that belief; and
   3. the treatment was because he had used a selected an email sign off that the employer deemed to be unacceptable and had refused to remove it.

The Tribunal also considered the fact that the Claimant had a public facing role and that therefore a provocative email signature posed a risk of reputational damage for the employer.

Despite this, the Tribunal did also highlight that the employers execution of the policy was “poorly thought through and badly executed” and the guidance was “vague and allowed [the Claimant] to adopt the position [he] did.”

What does this mean for employers?

This case illustrates that although gender critical beliefs are clearly protected under the Equality Act, a person may not be protected where the expression of that belief is inappropriate or offensive. Here the Tribunal found that the Claimant’s email signature “was designed to provoke” and possibly “designed to offend.”

This case also demonstrates of the importance of having clear policies and guidance around equality, diversity and inclusion.