Gender critical case: Woman seen as transphobic so bosses 'provoked complaints' to oust her from job, says lawyer as tribunal ends
A judge must decide if a woman’s bosses deliberately provoked outside complaints about her because she was “perceived to be transphobic”, a tribunal has been told.
Barrister Naomi Cunningham KC said the judge has to conclude whether senior figures at Belfast Film Festival did “something truly heinous” after Sara Morrison spoke at a rally organised by a prominent critic of trans rights ideology.
The festival’s barrister opposed Ms Cunningham’s line of thinking, pointing out Ms Morrison resigned before any disciplinary proceedings began. “She jumped when she didn’t have to,” said Sean Doherty.
The arguments came during legal submissions on the last day of a fortnight-long tribunal, which has seen twists and turns including two failed attempts by Ms Morrison’s legal team to get members of the judging panel to recuse themselves from the case, and the festival’s co-founder, ex-IRA hunger striker turned playwright Laurence McKeown, liken her presence at the rally to him sharing a platform with dissident republicans pushing for armed struggle – though he rapidly rowed back on his words.
Once the organisation’s inclusion and audience development coordinator, Ms Morrison appeared at a Let Women Speak event in Belfast in April 2023, run by English activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull.
During the rally, which the former festival employee says she attended in a personal capacity to make a speech about women’s rights, Ms Morrison criticised several activist bodies in the women’s rights sector, including partner organisations of the film festival.
The event was protested by LGBT groups, some of whom complained they could no longer work with her.
The festival launched an investigation into Ms Morrison in summer 2023. She left work citing stress, subsequently resigning; she alleges she was discriminated against due to her beliefs on sex and gender.
During today’s submissions, Ms Cunningham suggested the festival set up an LGBT Pride event with the “ulterior purpose” of sparking further complaints that could be used as pretext to start disciplinary and dismissal procedures. As part of that event, she stated, Ms Morrison had to email gay and women’s rights groups likely to be upset with her appearance at the rally,
The festival describes itself as “an inclusive organisation”, the barrister said, meaning it has “signed up to gender identity theory [and] therefore hostile to sex-realist” political beliefs held by Ms Morrison. When she “manifested those beliefs in public”, suggested Ms Cunningham, the festival’s board wanted her gone and sought reasons to launch the investigation.
The KC also described trans ideology as “a novel creed” in the workplace, adding it is “so obviously counterfactual that it can only be sustained by shaming, silencing and bullying”.
Mr Doherty argued the investigation was a “neutral act” that “could have exonerated [her] from the claims she faced”.
Highlighting the two failed recusal applications, which alleged panel members were biased against gender-critical or sex-realist beliefs due to past associations with other organisations, the barrister suggested they were indicative of the former festival employee’s mindset. “If you don’t share her political opinions, she doesn’t want you around,” he said.
Pointing out that Ms Morrison had publicly described festival partner women’s rights groups as “a racket”, Mr Doherty said there were “suggestions of damage to [the festival’s] reputation” and “prima facie breach of contract” stemming from her actions.
“Any other person expressing any other opinion causing the same level of blowback would have been investigated,” he said. “What else was the film festival supposed to do?”
Acknowledging the case involved complex issues, Judge Sturgeon advised that a verdict is unlikely to be in before Christmas.