A tribunal has dismissed every claim brought by Sara O'Gorman against Belfast Film Festival, including discrimination on gender-critical grounds, harassment, and constructive dismissal. O'Gorman spoke at a Let Women Speak rally while employed as the festival's Inclusion and Audience Development Co-ordinator. The tribunal found the festival was entitled to investigate that conduct.

What actually happened

Sara O'Gorman began working for Belfast Film Festival in February 2020, in a role specifically focused on inclusion and audience development. In April 2023, she spoke at a Let Women Speak rally. The festival received complaints about that and opened an investigation into her conduct. O'Gorman resigned in November 2024 and brought a series of claims: discrimination on the ground of gender-critical beliefs, harassment, and constructive dismissal. She later withdrew a protected disclosure claim partway through proceedings.

The hearing ran for eight days in November 2025, before Employment Judge Sturgeon and panel member Mr M McKeown. O'Gorman's legal team attempted, on day five, to have the entire panel recused for bias, then on day six applied again to have McKeown recused on the basis of his former trade union membership. Both applications were refused. Every single substantive claim was then dismissed in its entirety.

You can hold the views. That was never the issue.

This part gets muddied so quickly in the public conversation. The tribunal did not punish O'Gorman for holding gender-critical views. Gender-critical belief has been ruled a protected characteristic in Great Britain, and while this case was heard in Northern Ireland under different legislation, the principle that beliefs themselves are protected is well established. Holding a view does not make you immune from the consequences of how you act on it, especially in a professional role.

O'Gorman was not dismissed. She resigned. And she was employed not in a generic administrative position but as an Inclusion and Audience Development Co-ordinator, a role whose entire purpose is to make the festival a welcoming space for its audiences, including its LGBTQ+ audiences. When complaints arrived about her appearance at a Let Women Speak rally, the festival investigated. The tribunal found it was entitled to do exactly that.

There is a meaningful difference between "my employer objects to my private views" and "my employer has questions about my conduct in a role specifically defined by inclusion work". O'Gorman's case rested on collapsing that distinction. The tribunal did not accept it.

Let Women Speak and Sex Matters: who funds this, and why does it matter?

Let Women Speak is a campaign associated with Kellie-Jay Keen (also known as Posie Parker). Its rallies have consistently platformed speakers who oppose the legal recognition of trans people, and several have attracted far-right groups. Sex Matters, whose chair is Naomi Cunningham, who served as O'Gorman's own barrister in this case, campaigns explicitly for what it describes as "sex-based rights", with a focus on rolling back legal protections and recognition for trans people. Both organisations are transparent about their positions: they believe that sex is binary, immutable, and that trans women are not women for legal, social, or practical purposes.

I am not suggesting that attending a rally or holding those views is a crime. What I am saying is that those are the organised networks providing the strategic, legal, and financial muscle behind cases like this one, and it is worth knowing that. When Naomi Cunningham, the chair of Sex Matters, represents the claimant in a case framed around gender-critical belief in a cultural institution, the litigation is not politically neutral. It is part of a coordinated effort to use employment law as a lever to push back against trans-inclusive practice in public life.

Reports indicate that JK Rowling, who has publicly funded legal cases involving gender-critical litigants, was connected to support for this matter. I cannot verify every detail of the funding trail from the tribunal document alone, and I will not overstate what I know. What I can say is that billionaire funding does not make a legal claim stronger, and the tribunal's unanimous verdict makes that plain.

The real strategy here

The angle here is exactly right: this is not primarily about free speech. Free speech was never at risk. O'Gorman was not arrested, prosecuted, or silenced. She spoke at a rally, resigned from her job, and then brought an employment claim.

The strategy is attrition. Take your employer to tribunal. Make the process expensive, time-consuming, and uncomfortable. Hope that the next cultural organisation thinks twice before investigating a staff member's conduct, or before programming films that celebrate trans lives, or before making any decision that a gender-critical employee might object to. The Belfast Film Festival is a small, non-profit organisation set up in the mid-1990s to promote film and education. It ran a ten-day hearing, faced multiple recusal applications, and had to defend itself comprehensively. That costs money, time, and energy, regardless of the outcome.

And the outcome here was a unanimous dismissal of everything. Every claim, gone.

What this means for inclusion work

Belfast Film Festival held its ground. That matters. The festival's witnesses, including its CEO Michele Devlin, its co-chairs, and several board members, gave evidence and were cross-examined. They defended the investigation they had conducted. The tribunal accepted their position in full.

For anyone working in cultural organisations, arts funding, community outreach, or inclusion roles, the message from this verdict is straightforward. An employer whose work is explicitly centred on inclusion is entitled to ask questions when a staff member's external conduct generates complaints from the communities that work is meant to serve. That is not discrimination, it is management.

What concerns me is the pattern beyond this single case. The gender-critical legal network is well resourced, well organised, and explicitly strategic. Losing one case does not end the campaign. A different institution will be next. The financial asymmetry between a well-funded litigation campaign and a small arts organisation is real, and I notice it even in a verdict that went entirely the right way.

Trans people and the organisations that include them deserve to know that the law, applied properly, does not require cultural spaces to platform views that harm their communities. This tribunal said exactly that.

If there is a news story you would like me to cover then just let Sammy know.

Dr Helen Webberley is a Gender Specialist, Medical Educator, and founder of GenderGP. She writes about gender diversity, trans healthcare, and the lives of trans people and their families.