Culture

The Anti-Science Propaganda of Transgender Activists

Dr. Allan Josephson is a research psychiatrist who led the department at the University of Louisville from 2003 onward. In 2017, Dr. Josephson appeared on a panel about gender dysphoria in which he warned against the rush to diagnose children with gender dysphoria and then to prescribe hormones and surgeries as treatment.

As a result of this, the University of Louisville demoted and then fired him. Why? Not for scientific reasons. His scientific credentials and research are impeccable. They fired him because his research did not support the rush to diagnose and to prescribe mutilating surgeries for children.

Madeleine Kearns has an interview with Dr. Josephson that explains the whole shameful ordeal. Dr. Josephson explains why he has chosen to speak up about what mental health professionals are doing to gender confused children with these treatments:

I saw parents and children being hurt by this. These kids are, for the most part, very vulnerable people. You can see that when you spend time with them. Certainly, the teenagers have multiple problems. Most of the time, 60 or 70 percent of the time, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, they’re hurting people. And parents are confused because they’re basically getting one message from medical and mental-health professionals and that is “Affirm people.” And so I have encouraged people to explore before prescribing treatment, specifically to consider other developmental factors, family factors, that have gone into the insecurities that are associated with this…

I spoke up because I’m at the end of my career. I have accomplished a lot professionally and had an established reputation. If someone like me can be demoted, harassed, and then effectively fired for expressing my views, think of what an intimidating effect this has on younger professionals, who are not yet established in their careers. And that should not be how academics proceeds or how science proceeds. We think together, we reason together, we talk together. My colleagues couldn’t do that. And I think we see that nationally as well.

So Dr. Josephson is now paying a price for actually speaking up for the children—that it’s actually harmful for medical professionals to suppress children’s puberty and then destroy their sexual organs through body-deforming surgeries. How did these “treatments” come to be so common today? Dr. Josephson explains:

There are now over 50 gender clinics in the United States. These were unheard of seven or eight years ago. And they’re set up real, almost like — if I may use a crude analogy — a restaurant where a person comes in and orders a treatment. Doctors have always said — you give me the symptoms, and I’ll help you with what I think is going on for the diagnosis. But that basic process is being short-circuited by a “this is my diagnosis; this is what I have” approach. And literally they’re asking for hormones. And amazingly, doctors are going along with it in many cases. I think it’s a travesty of our profession.

This is what is happening to children right now, and it’s all being driven not by science but by propaganda. Any doctor who dares speak up against this anti-science propaganda risks losing his job and livelihood. This is how LGBT activists win. They silence and intimidate all opposition to their ideology. That is what they have done to Dr. Josesphson, and that is what they are doing everywhere they can.

The anti-science propaganda of transgender activists is now driving medical professionals, and it is doing so at the expense of the welfare of troubled children. It’s hard to believe that this is where we are, but it’s true.

The Alliance Defending Freedom has now taken up Dr. Josephson’s case, and he is fighting back. Good for him. Read the rest of the interview here.