In a landmark victory for academic freedom, the University of Louisville will pay nearly $1.6 million in damages and attorneys’ fees to settle a lawsuit brought by a respected psychiatrist fired for questioning the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones on gender-distressed children.
The payout ends the long-running case of Dr Allan Josephson, a nationally renowned child and adolescent psychiatrist, who was targeted by colleagues and administrators after speaking in a personal capacity at a 2017 Heritage Foundation panel on treatment approaches for gender dysphoria.
Represented by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), Dr Josephson sued the university in 2019, alleging a campaign of harassment and retaliation for voicing mainstream clinical concerns about the increasingly dominant ‘affirmative’ model of transgender care, which urges clinicians to unquestioningly validate a child’s stated gender identity and, where requested, support medical transition.
Last September, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that Josephson’s case could proceed to trial, rejecting the university’s claims to qualified immunity and confirming that his comments were protected under the First Amendment.
Dr Josephson, who was hired in 2003 to lead a struggling division he later transformed into a nationally respected programme, had warned during the panel that the evidence for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones was weak.
Anticipating key findings from the UK’s Cass Review (2024), he pointed to growing evidence that such interventions can cause serious harms, including long-term bone density loss and infertility.
Given “the tendency for gender dysphoria to subside by late adolescence”, he argued that the affirmative model “did not serve [children’s] long-term health interests”.
Instead, he advocated a ‘watchful waiting’ approach – a developmentally grounded strategy that closely monitors children without initiating medical or social transition until their identity stabilises with age.
After learning of his remarks, several university faculty and staff members – including individuals from the institution’s LGBT Centre – objected to his views. Their indignation deepened when they discovered he had expressed similar opinions as an expert witness in earlier state and federal lawsuits involving public school children seeking access to facilities inconsistent with their biological sex.
Court documents reveal one colleague complaining to another that Dr Josephson was “literally going against the scientific and ethical position of the profession… and getting paid to do it”, receiving the reply: “Definately [sic] agree.” Yet in later depositions, both interlocutors disclaimed any expertise in gender dysphoria and were unable to identify a single ethical guideline he had violated.
Remarkably, senior administrators moved swiftly to placate critics, demoting Dr Josephson to the role of junior faculty just seven weeks after the Heritage Foundation panel event.
For good measure, they also reduced his salary, retirement benefits and academic travel funds. Shortly after the demotion, the Chief of Staff to the Dean of School reassured one irate employee: “We’ve taken care of that,” in reference to Dr Josephson’s presentation.
Over the ensuing months, colleagues continued to belittle and berate him, causing irreparable damage to his professional career and reputation. He was barred from treating LGBTQ patients. He was illegally mandated to use transgender terminology – i.e., language inconsistent with biological sex. He was prevented from discussing gender dysphoria with students, stripped of his teaching duties and even temporarily banned from faculty meetings.
University officials also conspired to remove him entirely. Their efforts included keeping a bizarre “Allan tracking document”, soliciting complaints from alumni who were coached on what to say and discussing the need to generate “strong documentation” to ensure he would not be reappointed.
In an op-ed for the Daily Signal, Josephson recalled being “ostracised” and “subjected to other forms of hostility”, as faculty members demanded he apologise for his views on transgender issues, though without specifying to whom.
“Others remained silent, knowing which way the cultural winds were blowing,” he says. “I was stunned to realise I was actually being punished for doing what I was paid to do; namely, think and speak.”
The environment grew increasingly hostile until the university informed him of its highly unusual decision not to renew his contract when it expired on June 30th 2019, bringing a nearly 40-year academic career to an end.
Following his dismissal, he sued, and in March 2023 a federal district court ruled that a jury should hear his claims that university officials retaliated against him for his constitutionally protected speech.
The officials in question then appealed, arguing they were entitled to qualified immunity, which would have shielded them from trial. It was not clearly established, they claimed, that each defendant’s conduct, in isolation, showed retaliation against the professor because of his protected First Amendment speech. They further argued that it was “unclear” whether the First Amendment protected Dr Josephson’s off-campus, off-the-clock remarks.
In response, his counsel pointed out that this was effectively to ask the Court to ignore “decades of established precedent – from this Court and the Supreme Court – that protects professors’ right to express their views on public issues off campus, prohibits public universities from retaliating against professors who exercise this right, and allows wrongly terminated professors to seek reinstatement”.
Last year, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the defendants’ argument and sent the case back to the district court for jury trial.
Facing the prospect of a public trial, the university opted to settle before proceedings began.
“I’m glad to finally receive vindication for voicing what I know is true,” said Dr Josephson following news of the settlement. “Children deserve better than life-altering procedures that mutilate their bodies and destroy their ability to lead fulfilling lives.”
Despite the ordeal, he said he is “overwhelmed” to know that his case may help other medical professionals speak more freely: “Acceptance of one’s sex leads to flourishing.”
“After several years, free speech and common sense have scored a major victory on college campuses,” said ADF Senior Counsel Travis Barham. “Dr Josephson’s case illustrates why – because the latest and best science confirms what he stated all along. Hopefully, other public universities will learn that if they violate the First Amendment, they can be held accountable – and it can be very expensive.”
Dr Frederick Attenborough is the Executive Director of Communications and Research at the Free Speech Union.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Slowly but surely…
Great news.
University of Louisville
Some “universities” are deeper into the New Dark Age than others. This one has to be one of the most deranged and wicked.
Final Score:
Professor Josephson $1,600,000, Witchfinder Generals 0.
Game over. Witchfinders relegated to footnote of history (until the next lot come out of the undergrowth).
They always do hefty pay-outs in U.S court cases, don’t they? Wow, if he wasn’t a millionaire before then he is now, but fair play to Dr Josephson for standing up for what is right and also for demonstrating adherence to medical ethics.
It does make me wonder how many men who identify as women have a genuine case of gender dysphoria and how many are just perverts/predators/autogynephiles;
”Look how marginalised and vulnerable Dave is. But at least he got his “life-saving healthcare” tits.”
https://x.com/RoisinMichaux/status/1914995923874173076
It really is a social contagion, but even with Trump in office are these people likely to ‘disappear’ from the stats and revert back to the ‘sex binary’, e.g a normal state of being?
”This is the number of ppl every US adults who identify as transgender, by their birth year.
This isn’t the # of trans BY year, it’s a snapshot of everyone who’s trans today, by their birth year.
If it were a naturally occurring phenomenon, you’d see it more or less evenly spread out amongst the population, but we don’t. Instead, we see an overwhelming number of young ppl identifying as trans.
This is what a social contagion looks like.”
https://x.com/Rob_ThaBuilder/status/1914636530338980285
The statistics show it is the latest thing that the group think wish to identify with. I remember the previous group think re ME and Anorexia. Meanwhile the vulnerable youngsters are sacrificed on the altar of minority interests.
Great news for the Prof and the big payout will focus the minds of the insurers.
Great news.
Lies enslave us.
Every time we say no to a lie, the world becomes a better place and we become better people.
As always the people responsible for the persecution get away scot-free They need to be named and shamed and have their career ruined
Excellent. Well done to that man for standing his ground.
Congratulations to Dr Josephson. The Exposé also recently published an article criticizing puberty blockers here: https://expose-news.com/2025/04/18/puberty-blockers-are-a-chemical-mutilation-of-children/.
Paediatrician and child advocate Dr. Michelle Cretella delivers a searing takedown of the gender ideology movement, calling it what it is: a dangerous, profit-driven assault on children.
Dr. Cretella explains that sex is binary, immutable, and grounded in biology, not identity. She exposes the devastating effects of so-called “gender-affirming care,” including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries that sterilise and permanently damage healthy kids – all while failing to improve mental health outcomes.
Behind it all? A medical pipeline that creates lifelong patients and massive profits for Big Pharma.