A teacher in Ireland has been suspended from his job and jailed for contempt of court after he refused to address a transgender student by their “preferred pronouns.”
The teacher, Enoch Burke, was arrested on Monday after violating a court order prohibiting him from teaching or being present at Wilson’s Hospital School, according to The New York Post.
Reportedly, Burke, who teaches history, politics and German, refused to address a “transgender” student as “they” instead of “he.” Burke addressed the student by male pronouns. The school then placed him on administrative leave “pending the outcome of a disciplinary process.”
Burke refused to stay away from the school. A judge issued an order on Friday to arrest Burke after he was found in an empty classroom at the school. On Monday, he was taken into custody and taken to court.
“I am a teacher and I don’t want to go to prison,” Burke told the court, according to The Post. “I want to be in my classroom today, that’s where I was this morning when I was arrested.”
“I love my school, with its motto Res Non Verba, ‘Actions not words,’ but I am here today because I said I would not call a boy a girl,” Burke told the court, according to the Post. “Transgenderism is against my Christian belief. It is contrary to the scriptures, contrary to the ethos of the Church of Ireland and of my school.”
In July, the British National Health Service announced it would shut down its only dedicated gender identity clinic for children by spring 2023. A doctor who authored a review of the clinic claimed that patients’ mental health issues were “overshadowed” if they mentioned gender.
In June, Townhall reported that a study conducted at UCLA’s Williams Institute claimed that 1.64 million people over age 13 in the United States identify as “transgender.” This included 300,000 youth, 13 to 17 years old. There are over 300,000 who identify as “gender nonconforming.”
Shortly after the study came out, a 17-year-old girl in California who once identified as “transgender” spoke out in support of Florida Rule 59G-1.050, a new rule that prohibits Medicaid coverage for "gender-affirming" care. The young woman, Chloe Cole, decided she was transgender at age 12 and medically transitioned during ages 13 to 17, taking puberty blockers and testosterone. She underwent a double mastectomy at 15.
“I really didn’t understand all of the ramifications of any of the medical decisions that I was making,” Cole said during a hearing over the rule. “I was unknowingly physically cutting off my true self from my body, irreversibly and painfully.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to fully carry a child and I might be at increased risk for certain cancers, namely, cervical cancer,” Cole said. “I’m not able to breastfeed whatever future children I have.”
“That realization actually was one of the biggest things that led to me realizing that this was not the path I should have taken,” she added.