Sara Morrison v Belfast Film Festival

Film festival employee alleges discrimination against her employer on the basis of gender critical beliefs

Feb 13, 2024

Sara Morrison, an inclusion/audience development co-ordinator, is bringing an employment tribunal against Belfast Film Festival (BFF) alleging discrimination on the basis of her ‘gender critical’ beliefs.

On 16th September 2023, Ms Morrison attended a Belfast ‘Let Women Speak’ event in a personal capacity, organised and led by women's rights campaigner, Kellie-Jay Keen.

Ms Morrison spoke about the intimidation and harassment women suffer when they express ‘gender critical’ views. Almost immediately, Ms Morrison became the subject of online bullying campaign with her photo, name and her workplace all identified online, and her employer, colleagues and previous employers targeted.

Ms Morrison reported the harassment to the police, who spoke to those targeting her and was advised to install security cameras.

After a few months respite, Ms Morrison alleges that a 'trans focussed' organisation contacted her employer refusing to work with her citing the ‘Let Women Speak’ event as their reason. Similar organisations also refused with emails, tweets and texts implying she was 'unsafe to work with’ and an 'anti gay fascist'.

BFF then issued a statement asserting Ms Morrison would be investigated and that they supported gender identity ideology.

Ms Morrison has been off work with stress since July and does not know if she has a job, why her employer took months to initiate an investigation, what its objective is and when it will end.

Ms Morrison states that no one should be discriminated against for ‘gender critical’ views, that freedom of expression in the arts is important, and that publically funded arts organisations should be impartial.

Sara's Crowdfunder

Status

Solicitor Simon Chambers has taken on the case. A case management preliminary hearing took place at the Employment Tribunal in Belfast on 30th May 2024 and the case has been listed for hearing for 5 days, commencing on 13th January 2025.

Live Tweeting sessions

Abbreviations

Press Coverage

Here are links to a selection of relevant press coverage about this case. These links are included without comment and are not endorsed by Tribunal Tweets. This is a sample of coverage only, with most recent first - it is not comprehensive. Please DM our main Twitter account to submit coverage from an established news outlet. Any paywalled article must be archived.

Open Justice with Tribunal Tweets

Discussion about this post