Prof sacked for opposing ‘mutilation of gender-confused kids’ receives $1.6m payout

A professor of child psychology who was dismissed for speaking out against dangerous trans-affirming procedures for children has received a substantial payout.

The University of Louisville agreed to pay Professor Allan Josephson almost $1.6 million in damages and legal fees for violating his constitutional right to freedom of speech, after an appeals court ruled in his favour in September last year.

Prof Josephson, who led the University’s Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology, sued his employer after he was demoted, harassed and dismissed for voicing concerns about sex-swap drugs and trans surgeries for gender-confused children.

‘Universal truth’

Responding to the settlement, the scholar and psychiatrist said: “I’m glad to finally receive vindication for voicing what I know is true.

“Children deserve better than life-altering procedures that mutilate their bodies and destroy their ability to lead fulfilling lives.”

He hoped the ruling would “lead the way for other medical practitioners to see the universal truth that altering biological sex is impossibly dangerous while acceptance of one’s sex leads to flourishing”.

Prof Josephson was supported in his case by Alliance Defending Freedom. Travis Barham, Senior Counsel at the religious liberty group, welcomed the outcome as a victory for “free speech and common sense” and praised the professor for risking “his livelihood and reputation to speak the truth boldly”.

Destroying lives

Earlier this month, Dr Eithan Haim told the US House of Representatives how trans-affirming procedures harm gender-confused children.

The Texas Children’s Hospital’s (TCH) whistleblower explained that puberty blockers lead to “irreversible physical changes – sterility, altered bone development, permanent stunting of growth, and many more both known and unknown”.

He reported that at TCH, “We would take children to the operating room, and we would make them better. But in the same operating room they were taking them there and making them sick.

“They are destroying the lives of these children. They’re putting them down a road where they become a chronic medical patient that they can never come back from. Could I call myself a doctor if I didn’t speak against it?”