Her final reaction, she said, was “a real sadness for the young people of that school because on every single stop of this school tour there have been young LGBTQ kids who have come up to me and said, ‘Thank you very much for doing everything you do.'

"There will be young people at Brownedge who will be LGBT. Those kids knew I was coming and now I’m not. It beggars belief. One does wonder what kind of support those kids are getting.”

But the headteacher of Brownedge St. Mary's, Martin Reynolds, told BuzzFeed News the event was not cancelled and denied the allegation of discrimination.

"I asked for the visit to be postponed to a later date not cancelled," he said in a statement. "The postponement of Juno's visit was not due to the fact that Juno Dawson is transgender ... We would never discriminate against any individual on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity as we teach our children that each individual person is precious and unique."

He added: "A representative said she felt the subject matter meant that a visit was inappropriate at this time because we wanted a proper context for it so that our younger students could get more value out of it. ... We wanted more time to do this theme justice for our younger students."

Reynolds did not elaborate on which theme he was referring to, but said: "We would like to invite Juno into our school later this year when we can make maximum educational impact for all of our children."

Reacting to this response, Dawson told BuzzFeed News it simply wasn't true that the event was postponed rather than cancelled, because there was no offer of a future event and attempts by Hope to make it happen were rebuffed.

Furthermore, she said, the reason given – "subject matter" – did not tally up with the notion now supplied that the school needed more time to put her visit "in context", particularly given that the school had had weeks to prepare for her visit. She described the headteacher's response as "back-peddling".

Brownedge St. Mary's has previously been lauded for its work on LGBT matters and anti-bullying measures, and makes specific mention of anti-discrimination regarding both sexual orientation and gender identity in its official policies.

It was rewarded for its diversity efforts by a visit from legendary actor and campaigner Sir Ian McKellen on behalf of Stonewall, the LGBT equality charity. As recently as December 2016, a pupil at the school tweeted saying “how good life is now” and “school inspired me after sir Ian came”.

In his statement to BuzzFeed News, the headteacher pointed out: "We are a Stonewall Champion School of three years standing because of the way we combat homophobia in society and in schools."



This has not convinced Dawson, who explained her reasons for wanting to speak out: “I won’t be the only person this is happening to and historically trans people have really struggled with employment, because we feel we can’t survive in the workplace.”