Dr. Allan Josephson

At a time when few were willing to stand up to the lies of gender ideology and risk their professional reputations and careers, one man was.

For years, “experts”—doctors, counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, and others—followed the lead of activist organizations and ignored common sense. They helped spread the lie that gender was malleable—that boys could “transition” into girls, and vice versa.

This included the lie that taking dangerous gender-transition drugs like puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones would help a teen struggling with confusion about her body. Or the lie that removing healthy body parts would do anything other than create a lifetime of pain and regret.

Parents struggling to find help for a child suffering from gender dysphoria need the truth—not “affirmation.” They need real healthcare—not experimentation.

But who would tell them that?

One man did. But it cost him dearly.

Who is Dr. Josephson?

Dr. Allan M. Josephson led the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Louisville for nearly 15 years. In total, he was in academia for nearly 40 years and received the prestigious Oskar Pfister Award, which honors outstanding contributions in the field of psychiatry and religion.

When he arrived at the school in 2003, he took over a struggling program. After many years of careful research, dedicated leadership, and hard work, he helped the program become nationally recognized—benefiting the university greatly in the process. Thirteen times, the university asked him to teach other division chiefs how to improve their divisions.

During this time, the lies of gender ideology began to quickly spread beyond the theoretical realms of academia and burst into the culture. Thanks to the social contagion it spawned, many parents were suddenly faced with questions and struggles that they weren’t prepared to deal with. They needed help from trusted voices in the medical and mental health fields.

But unfortunately, “experts” in those fields abandoned common sense and the truth in favor of advancing gender ideology.

Parents were often told to affirm the confusion they saw in their children. If their daughter said she “felt” like a boy, parents were told it was life-saving to agree with this notion and treat their daughter as a boy. While such “treatment” would start with the “social transition,” this often led to surgical procedures that would leave their child permanently scarred and suffering.

Dr. Josephson saw this dangerous trend developing and knew that families needed truth, not ideology. He knew that no matter the pronouns, a girl would always be a girl. And regardless of the surgeries or drugs taken, a boy would always be a boy.

So, Dr. Josephson, knowing that it might cost him dearly, chose courage over fear and began to boldly speak the truth.

Speaking the truth

As early as 2014, Dr. Josephson became concerned with how doctors were treating gender-dysphoric children: accepting the child’s claimed gender identity, prescribing sterilizing hormones, and setting the stage for life-altering surgery.

In 2016 and 2017, Dr. Josephson served as an expert witness on several legal cases on the subject, and in October 2017, he participated in a panel discussion on gender dysphoria at the Heritage Foundation, a well-known think tank in Washington, D.C. There, Dr. Josephson expressed his professional view on treatments for children experiencing gender dysphoria.

Dr. Josephson said that medical professionals should seek to understand and treat the psychological issues that often cause this confusion, rather than rushing children into more radical, invasive, and aggressive treatments like puberty-blocking drugs and cross-sex hormones.

Speaking as a psychiatrist with over 35 years of experience, Dr. Josephson argued that children are not mature enough to make permanent, life-altering decisions of any kind, let alone medical ones such as this. As other professionals in the field have pointed out, 80 to 95 percent of children who say they experience gender dysphoria naturally come to accept their biological sex over time.

But a few university faculty and staff did not like Dr. Josephson’s views.

The cost of speaking the truth

Just a few weeks after the panel discussion, the university began targeting Dr. Josephson. He was demoted to the role of a junior faculty member, and for the next year, he was subjected to a hostile environment and belittling assignments. Then in February 2019, the university informed him that it would not renew his contract, ending his distinguished, almost 40-year-long career.

It did not matter that his statements at the Heritage Foundation were backed with science. Nor did it matter that Dr. Josephson was expressing his personal views as an experienced professional on his own time at an event hundreds of miles from campus. Dr. Josephson had even received perfect marks on his performance reviews for the three years immediately preceding his decision to speak out about the harms of gender ideology.

Bottom line: he was punished and fired because his views were not in line with those of university officials.

That’s why he reached out to Alliance Defending Freedom to defend his right to free speech. Even if fellow faculty members disagreed strongly with his point of view, Dr. Josephson has a right to express it.

Dr. Josephson’s case helped expose the truth about the larger corruption and censorship that is taking place in many other university institutions.

Final vindication

Dr. Josephson lost years of his career while the case wound its way through the courts. Thankfully, in March 2023, a federal district court ruled that a jury should hear his claims against the university’s retaliatory actions toward him. After the university appealed the ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit affirmed the lower court’s ruling in September 2024.

Finally, in April 2025, after a six-year legal battle, the university signed an agreement to a nearly $1.6 million settlement.

Dr. Josephson risked his career and reputation to speak the truth, and the University of Louisville fired him for taking a stand. Nearly a decade later, Dr. Josephson’s legal victory tells the story of how gender ideology engulfed America—yet the truth won out.

Winning against gender ideology

For over a decade, Alliance Defending Freedom has been fighting radical gender ideology in the courts and in the culture. Early in this fight, Dr. Josephson bravely volunteered to be an expert witness in some of the first legal cases to challenge gender ideology.

Now, the tide has shifted back toward truth and common sense. This shift contributed to President Trump’s presidential win; polls show that most Americans don’t want it in their classrooms; and ADF continues to win legal battles for teachers who oppose the ideology. President Trump even signed an executive order making “there are only two genders” the policy of the federal government.

Dr. Josephson paved the way for prominent voices like Abigail Shrier and detransitioner Chloe Cole, arguing that doctors should address underlying psychological issues causing the discomfort first, especially because the child will often regain comfort with his sex.

Courts and international medical organizations recognize that science supports Dr. Josephson’s position, as it always did. And now, popular opinion is catching up.

Will you support ADF in our battle against gender ideology? ADF defends clients like Dr. Josephson in the courtroom at no charge to them, thanks to the generosity of our Ministry Friends.