A council worker hit with a £12,000 legal bill following a tribunal battle over preferred pronouns said ‘I have no regrets’.
Jim Orwin, 67, who was sacked by East Riding of Yorkshire Council for using the email footer ‘XYchromosomeGuy/AdultHumanMale’ has also denied being homophobic or transphobic.
The ICT project officer joined the council in 2018 and had no problems until April 2022 when bosses sent out an email suggesting staff add pronouns to their internal and external emails.
Mr Orwin decided to adopt ‘XYchromosomeGuy/AdultHumanMale’ instead of he/him, they/them, and so on.
Jim Orwin, 67, who was sacked by East Riding of Yorkshire Council for using the email footer ‘XYchromosomeGuy/AdultHumanMale’ has also denied being homophobic or transphobic
The ICT project officer was suspended and eventually sacked by the council (pictured in 2022) when he refused to change the footer on his emails
Speaking exclusively to MailOnline from his home in Hull, East Yorkshire, Mr Orwin explained: ‘It wasn’t mandatory, it was to enter pronouns should you wish to do so. It was my decision to do it.
‘There was a drop-down menu and it had he/him/his, she/her/hers, they/them/their, do not show, or other. And under ‘other’ you could put in what you wanted, and I chose that one.’
Mr Orwin said that he never requested to use pronouns at the end of his emails, the issue only started because East Riding of Yorkshire Council’s chief executive Caroline Lacey suggested staff ‘consider adding pronouns’.
Before this issue, Mr Orwin would sign off with his name and position within the council.
Staff were sent a link to mypronouns.org to help them choose.
Mr Orwin, who previously worked as a painter and decorator for 34 years before joining the council, said: ‘I went to that website and read every page and in there it said that people should be able to put whatever they want in an email footer and that could change.
‘There are neopronouns, which people can make up, and if you wanted to put one pronoun for one meeting and then another pronoun for another meeting, you could.’
Sitting beside his wife Julie, 66, Mr Orwin said he clicked ‘other’ and found there were no restrictions to what you could put in.
‘After I’d read everything I wanted to put something that only referred to me and didn’t refer in anyway to anybody else,’ he said.
‘I felt that if I put something in that was derogatory to anybody else which I wouldn’t do anyway, then somebody is going to pull me up straight away.
‘So I put something in that refers to me and is basic facts.’
Mr Orwin was invited by his line managers to change to pronoun, but he refused and was then suspended and later dismissed from his £27,000 a year job.
In May he took the authority to a tribunal, saying they had discriminated against his beliefs and he had been unfairly dismissed as if he had remained silent he would have ‘facilitated the steady creep of evil’.
Although the panel dismissed his case and found he was not discriminated against, it did accept his gender-critical beliefs amounted to a protected ‘philosophical belief within the meaning of section 10 of the Equality Act 2010’.
Now Mr Orwin has been ordered to pay the council £12,000 after an employment judge ruled his tribunal claim was ‘vexatious’.
He is now enjoying retirement with his wife of 48 years and is able to spend more time with his seven grandchildren.
He said he will have to dip into his retirement savings to pay the £12,000.
‘I think it is all crazy. I regret that I no longer work at the council, but if the same thing happened to me again I would do the same thing. I have no regrets for what I did,’ said Mr Orwin.
‘I think people should be able to identify whatever they want, but I don’t believe it should be imposed on other people to have to address them that way.
‘I am not homophobic or transphobic, my only strong belief is that everybody should be able to live their own life within the law as long as they are not physically or mentally damaging anyone else.’
Supportive Mrs Orwin said: ‘I feel sad for Jim. He really did like that job. He put everything into it.
‘He’s always been a really decent guy.’
