Let me begin this posting by urging that people do not rush to judgment. I say that because the unfolding of this story is likely to be stimulate prejudice on either side. My aim here is simply to set out the facts.

It concerns a woman's death in circumstances that are not yet definitively clear and a controversial column in the Daily Mail.

In late December last year, the Accrington Observer reported that a male primary school teacher would be returning after the Christmas break as a woman.

The story said that the head teacher of a Church of England school, St Mary Magdalen's, had notified parents that Nathan Upton would be known in future as Miss Lucy Meadows.

A day later, the Daily Mail's Richard Littlejohn wrote a column headlined "He's not only in the wrong body… he's in the wrong job" in which he asked whether anyone had thought of "the devastating effect" on the pupils of the teacher's change in gender.

He wrote: "Why should they be forced to deal with the news that a male teacher they have always known as Mr Upton will henceforth be a woman called Miss Meadows?" He continued:

"The school shouldn't be allowed to elevate its 'commitment to diversity and equality' above its duty of care to its pupils and their parents. It should be protecting pupils from some of the more, er, challenging realities of adult life, not forcing them down their throats. These are primary school children, for heaven's sake. Most them still believe in Father Christmas. Let them enjoy their childhood. They will lose their innocence soon enough."

Littlejohn, who made it clear he sympathised with people who required sex-change operations, concluded:

"Nathan Upton is entitled to his gender reassignment surgery, but he isn't entitled to project his personal problems on to impressionable young children. By insisting on returning to St Mary Magdalen's, he is putting his own selfish needs ahead of the well-being of the children he has taught for the past few years. It would have been easy for him to disappear quietly at Christmas, have the operation and then return to work as 'Miss Meadows' at another school on the other side of town in September. No-one would have been any the wiser. But if he cares so little for the sensibilities of the children he is paid to teach, he's not only trapped in the wrong body, he's in the wrong job."

That column has now been taken down from the Mail site following the news that Lucy Meadows was found dead at a house in Accrington on Tuesday.

The Sky News report quotes a Lancashire police spokeswoman as saying that there were no suspicious circumstances. This is usually taken to mean that it is a case of suicide, though it is possibly not the case.

Now an online petition has been launched calling on the Mail to fire Littlejohn and demanding a formal apology for the stress and pain caused to Lucy Meadows by the columnist, the paper and its readership.

The petition organiser states: "No one deserves to have their lives turned upside down for their gender identity being thrown into the national spotlight.

"The reason the parents who had a problem went to the Daily mail is that their was no way to get her fired under equal opportunity law. So they tried to give the school bad press by saying how terrible it is that she is allowed to live her life freely."

As I write, the petition has attracted almost 3,000 signatures.

But, sticking to the facts, it is important to note that there is no clear link – indeed any link – between what Littlejohn wrote and the death of Lucy Meadows.