Mackereth v Department for Work and Pensions [2022]

The claimant, a doctor, started employment with the respondent as a health and disabilities assessor of benefits claimants. This required face-to-face assessment with claimants and a report to be subsequently written up. During induction, the claimant made it clear he had religious beliefs such that he could not agree to use the preferred pronouns as required by the respondent’s policies.

The respondent decided the claimant could not be moved into a non-customer facing role as that would require 12 months’ experience. Similarly, it would not be possible to have the claimant only examining non-transgender customers as it would not be possible to decide who is and who is not transgender