A while back, I watched a panel of scholars discussing the science behind transgender doctrine. The panel was hosted by the Heritage Foundation, my favorite think tank. One of the participants was Dr. Allan M. Josephson, a distinguished professor of psychiatry at the University of Louisville. He disagreed with the official position of the secular left on transgenderism. And now he’s in big trouble.

Here’s the video, entitled “Gender Dysphoria in Children: Understanding the Science and Medicine“:

National Review posted an interview with Dr. Josephson.

Here is the intro:

Dr. Allan Josephson discusses academic freedom, child welfare, gender ideology, and the price he has paid for his principles.
Allan M. Josephson is a distinguished psychiatrist who, since 2003, has transformed the division of child and adolescent psychiatry and psychology at the University of Louisville from a struggling department to a nationally acclaimed program. In the fall of 2017 he appeared on a panel at the Heritage Foundation and shared his professional opinion on the medicalization of gender-confused youth. The university responded by demoting him and then effectively firing him.

As soon as the video of the panel came out, his employer came after him:

MK: How stressful has this ordeal been?

AJ: It has had various phases. The first phase was “this just can’t be happening to me.” I was very successful and very well liked. I built my division up from a few people to probably 15 and we had a clinic of almost 30 people. I was banned from faculty meetings. I was banned from certain kinds of interactions with staff and told what I could and couldn’t say to people. And this was a place that I built, you know. And then the stress of one’s personal relationships. My family worried about me, friends worried about me. It was probably was six months before I felt comfortable and was sleeping again. You know, the personal stress is pretty enormous, but then I decided to do something.

The professor expresses concerns about how cursory the evaluations of the children are, and about how transgender health clinics seem to work more like stores, where people just walk in and demand the prescriptions and treatments they want.

Dr. Josephson has decided to put forward a legal challenge to his employer, which is important for others who may also want to disagree without being fired by their employers.

This story made me think of a story that I saw last year from the UK, where a doctor was fired for refusing to participate in transgenderism.

The New York Post reports:

A UK doctor who was fired for refusing to refer to transgender people by their preferred gender pronoun says there is a “climate of fear” in his profession with staff “trained to inform” on one another for breaching discrimination laws.

Dr. David Mackereth’s contract as a medical assessor for the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) was terminated three weeks ago on the grounds that his refusal to use transgender pronouns could be considered harassment under the 2010 Equality Act.

The 55-year-old said his refusal to comply with the edict from the DWP has effectively ended his career, as he would never be hired for another government or National Health Service job again.

So, it’s not safe now to disagree with transgenderism. If you do, then your job is at risk. What a change this is from just a few years ago, when free speech was not limited by the feelings of other people. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but I don’t think that hurt feelings should be allowed to impose restrictions on free speech.