a slip of the tongue

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There's a story in the UKian news about a maths teacher who faces disciplinary action over what he claims to be a slip of the tongue. A pupil who identifies as a boy - biologically female - was in a group of pupils to whom the teacher said, Well done, girls. I don't know how big this particular bunch of pupils was, but presume the rest of them were girls. The parents complained and a week long investigation was carried out. So, the question is, would he still be facing disciplinary action if he wasn't also a part-time pastor who has made it clear that he believes that people should stick to the gender they're biologically given? He has also made it clear that, despite his beliefs, he would never impose his beliefs on anyway, particularly in a classroom environment. Either we're not getting the full story or this is purely a vendetta against him. We have tutors at work who are guilty of this type of slip of the tongue. Classes of majority girls in hairdressing, or classes of majority boys in construction, are told, Come on girls! or Come on boys! Nobody cares. The sole girl or boy just laughs, if they even notice at all. In my early teaching days I called a rather annoying fifteen year old an a-hole in front of the class! Very bad, but even the pupils could see it was a slip of the tongue caused by anger. Are we going to get to the point where everything we say has to be gender-neutral? Are we going to get to the point where a slip of the tongue can see us fired!? In our uncertain future will we be forced to have an opinion which is the same as everybody else's? By telling people that they're discriminating by saying and doing such-and-such, they're discriminating against those very people. We're giving everybody a label and placing them in a box, whilst forgetting that beliefs, thoughts, society, and the world at large are fluid and easily adaptive. Ultimately, regardless of colour, race, nationality, disability, gender, gender identification, sexual orientation, age and belief, we are all people. We all put our feet in our mouths and make vocal mistakes. None of us are perfect, and no one is more special than anyone else. We all bleed and we all die. As it stands, I have no problem with people who identify with the opposite gender to which they were biologically born. It stands to reason that it's no different to knowing you're gay from childhood. As long as it's dealt with properly from a psychological aspect then there's no harm. But by giving people power over slips of the tongue we're creating another group of people to fear and be anxious around. Acceptance goes both ways, doesn't it?