News Commentary
GHQ covers the highly politicized subject matter of the child/teen medical transition movement. It shows a pattern of activist censorship, silencing, and even threats of violence towards anyone who expresses any opinion outside of the affirmation only model. Psychiatrist Dr. Allan Josephson, who taught at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, was fired from his position there for appearing at a Heritage Foundation event questioning pediatric transition. The Heritage Foundation is known for opposing all LGBT activism, including opposition to same-sex marriage.
His story appeared in the Daily Signal:
Academia today “is not for the faint-hearted,” says a veteran professor who was head of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Louisville School of Medicine until he was demoted and then let go for making public comments on gender identity.
“You know, I really was an academic physician, not a politician. I wasn’t there with an agenda or an activist position,” Dr. Allan Josephson, who also was a professor of psychiatry, told The Daily Signal in a recent phone interview.
Some details on his firing:
After hearing about his remarks, four or five fellow University of Louisville faculty members who worked with Josephson asked the university to discipline or punish him.
Seven weeks after his appearance at Heritage, university officials demoted Josephson from division chief to faculty member in the division he had headed for nearly 15 years.
Ultimately, the public university in Kentucky let him go as of June 30, after announcing in February that it would not renew his contract.
He is also bringing a lawsuit against the university.
The new norm in academia in the United States will be that health professionals that question the affirmative model will be socially ostracized and punished career-wise. Another example of university staff shutting down access to research or commentary that doesn’t support immediate validation and transition happened when Brown University removed a link to a study, Littman (2018), trans activists didn’t like. The study supports the idea social contagion may be a factor in a minor’s trans-identification.
While these discussions are relevant, and liberal platforms refuse to allow them, many LGBT supportive people will be hostile to a message of skepticism about safety if it is done at an appearance at the Heritage Foundation.
References:
del Guidice, Rachel. (2019, August 19). Academia Today ‘Not for Faint-Hearted,’ Says Professor Who Lost His Job for Talking About Gender. The Daily Signal. Retrieved from https://www.dailysignal.com/2019/08/27/academia-today-not-for-faint-hearted-says-professor-who-lost-his-job-for-talking-about-gender/
Heritage Foundation. (2019, April 4). What Doctors Aren't Telling The Parents of Gender Dysphoric Children [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VovGbtShGvk
Littman, L. (2018). Rapid-onset gender dysphoria in adolescents and young adults: A study of parental reports. PLOS ONE, 13(8). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0202330
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