When Belief Meets Inclusion: Why U.S. Employers Are Entering the Same Legal Uncertainty Faced in the UK
The recent religious discrimination claim against Bath & Body Works is being closely watched by lawyers, HR professionals, and business leaders across the United States. At its heart, the case raises a difficult question: how far must an employer go in accommodating an employee’s religious convictions when those convictions conflict with policies designed to protect transgender employees?
This is not a new debate. In the United Kingdom, employment law has been wrestling with the same tension for more than a decade. Cases such as Forstater v CGD, Mackereth v DWP, and Higgs v Farmor’s School have all tested the boundaries of what counts as a protected belief, how far individuals can express that belief, and when employers are justified in enforcing inclusion policies. The results have been inconsistent, sometimes surprising, and often unpredictable.
Two Cases, Two Systems, The Same Dilemma
The Bath & Body Works case (United States):
A store manager in Utah says she was dismissed after refusing, on religious grounds, to use male pronouns for a transgender colleague. She did use the colleague’s chosen name but not the pronouns, which she said conflicted with her faith. Bath & Body Works argued this breached their code of conduct and inclusion policies. The case is still pending before the EEOC, but it is already being watched closely across the U.S. as a test of how Title VII will balance religious freedom and gender identity protections.
The Mackereth case (United Kingdom):
Dr David Mackereth, a Christian health assessor, refused to use transgender service users’ chosen pronouns. An employment tribunal initially held his belief was not protected. The Employment Appeal Tribunal overturned that finding, confirming his belief was protected under the Equality Act. However, the dismissal was still upheld as lawful because the employer’s pronoun policy was considered necessary and proportionate to protect service users.
Together these cases show the same dilemma playing out in different jurisdictions. Belief itself may be protected, but the way it is expressed in the workplace is judged against inclusion, safeguarding, and reasonableness. The outcomes are highly dependent on interpretation, which is why employers find them so difficult to predict.
Interpretation, Not Just Law
What is changing is not the law itself but how it is interpreted. Courts are moving away from rigid categories and towards a more human approach. They are asking what a reasonable person would have done in the circumstances, and how rights and duties should be balanced in context. That widening lens makes outcomes more fact-sensitive and less predictable. In practice, two tribunals faced with the same facts may reach very different conclusions.
The United States is now entering that same territory. Title VII sets the framework, just as the Equality Act does in the UK, but the underlying test is remarkably similar. It is about protecting religious freedom while safeguarding workplace inclusion. It is about respecting belief without giving licence to discriminate. And it is about asking judges to balance competing rights case by case.
What This Means For Employers
For employers, this is where the challenge lies. When the outcome depends on interpretation, and on how a court applies broad principles to specific facts, certainty disappears. What once felt clear becomes blurred, and the safe path is harder to see.
This is where experience counts. I have spent years guiding UK employers through the uncertainty that comes with this kind of interpretation, where belief rights and inclusion policies collide, where proportionality matters, and where fairness is measured against what a reasonable person would have done. The law may differ in detail, but the challenges for employers are strikingly similar.
The Bath & Body Works case will not be the last of its kind. The United States is stepping into the same era of unpredictability that the UK has already lived through. For employers, the cost of getting it wrong is high. The value lies in anticipating the risk, learning from how these clashes have played out in the UK, and building policies, training, and strategies that stand up both to the law and to the reality of today’s workplace.