A well-respected teacher has been struck off after challenging her school’s gender identity policy, intimating that it engenders ‘trans privilege’, and claiming that autistic pupils are “plastered” with the accoutrement of the LGBTQ movement.
Camilla Hannan posted remarks including “where I teach the trans kids are untouchable” while working at the school in Manchester.
The teacher, who had been employed at the school since 2001, also wrote of trans students: “They get everything they ask for and everyone, staff and other students alike, is petrified of upsetting them. They don’t seem oppressed to me more like oppressors tbh.”
Referring to the various health risks associated with unquestioningly ‘affirming’ a gender confused child’s gender identity and then hurrying them through social transition and towards a form of medical transition that involves puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, Hannan wrote: “I teach a [redacted] who has changed [redacted] pronouns to [redacted] and [redacted] name to [Pupil A]. I worry about what the next steps will be.”
Another post with a similar theme read: “One of my [redacted] students is on [redacted]. [Redacted] has become quite hyperactive and emotionally up and down. I worry for [redacted].
Hannan also commented: “Where I teach we have gender identity policy [roll eyes emoji] it’s a load of nonsensical rubbish, as you’d imagine.”
On another occasion, she wrote: “The autistic/ASD (redacted) I teach are all plastered with trans flags and badges, without exception.”
In May 2023 someone referred to by the Teaching Regulation Authority (TRA) misconduct hearing as a “whistle-blower” told the school about Hannan’s tweets, and a month later she resigned from her position at the School. A disciplinary hearing subsequently took place, and it was decided that Hannan would have been dismissed but for her resignation.
Hannan admitted all the allegations against her and accepted they amounted to unacceptable professional conduct.
The TRA misconduct hearing said the behaviour demonstrated a lack of tolerance and respect for the rights and beliefs of others.
Despite accepting that Hannan was a well-respected teacher who colleagues said was “caring and compassionate”, the panel found her tweets were offensive and dismissive of pupils, with one particular student having the emotional upheaval they were going through belittled.
The panel also found: that the dismissive nature of the language used, including the use of the “eye roll” emoji to dismiss the School’s gender identity policy, was offensive to those whom the policy was in place to protect; that Hannan’s comments, such as calling the policy “non-sensical rubbish”, were offensive; and that the teacher “repeatedly misgender[ing] the pupil, believed to be Pupil A, on more than one occasion… was clearly offensive and transphobic”.
Relatedly, the panel found that Hannan demonstrated a lack of respect for Pupil A, by “outing” them on social media, and commented that “whilst she was entitled to have that attitude and hold the views that she did, it was not acceptable for her to have posted these on social media in a way that was damaging to the profession, the School, pupils and in particular Pupil A”.
In a mitigation statement, Hannan said she did “not bear trans people any malice or ill will” and she respected “their right to live as they please, and to ask others to refer to them by names and pronouns of their choice”.
She stated she had concerns with the use of gender ideology in schools which “stemmed from a deep commitment to the safety and wellbeing of all the children” in her care.
The teacher said she turned to social media to express some of her “pent up frustration, anger and deep concern” with some of the policies and leadership at the school, which she conceded was “poor judgement”.
