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- [00:05]
A
Welcome to a special conversation, a special episode of the Breakpoint podcast. I think it was about 13 or 14 years ago. I was walking out of a conference that I had just spoken at at Ridgecrest Conference center in North Carolina. The conference was the Christian Medical and Dental association and met someone who I'd heard of. I'd heard of because he was facing a legal challenge, to say the least. Dr. Alan Joseph. That's probably funny to hear it described like that.
- [00:36]
B
On this side, it's funny, and it's great. On this side of it, it wasn't so.
- [00:40]
A
But so funny on the other side of it. I mean, in a sense, and I want you to tell the whole story, but your situation was one of the earliest challenges or collisions between conscience and conscience rights and this transgender movement that was really in its infancy.
- [01:01]
B
I didn't realize it at the time, but yes, it was. Absolutely, it was.
- [01:04]
A
Let's go back and talk about the story. You're a professor at the time at the University of Louisville. What happens?
- [01:12]
B
Right. Well, I spoke with Dave Stevens several times on CMDA Matters, a podcast. And once you're on a podcast, once you're out there, people had heard about it, and several physicians had heard about it, heard me, wanted me to come join them at the behest of Ryan Anderson for a panel they were having at the Heritage Foundation. They had a pediatrician and an endocrinologist. They needed a psychiatrist. So I said, sure, I'm in. Little did I know that would lead to all kinds of stuff. It was on the ethics in medicine about transgender stuff. I don't know exactly the title, but that's what it was. Medicine and transgender issues. And they needed three people, so I was one of them.
- [02:03]
A
I mean, at the time, if I remember. And again, we have to go back to the year, this was clearly an issue that was emerging.
- [02:11]
B
Emerging would be a good word.
- [02:13]
A
Yeah, it was still. But it was still emerging, and it was before then. Basically, all dissent was squashed. Right. I mean, in other words, it was still kind of a strange phenomenon almost even on the edges of medicine and pediatric development and psychology and so on. Did you imagine at the time that saying what you said, which was basically to affirm that transgender ideology was flawed, that you cannot change who you are from male to female, female to male. Were you worried that what you were saying would be controversial?
- [02:51]
B
Not in the least. I didn't realize how big the it was out there.
- [02:57]
A
Right.
- [02:57]
B
And that my remarks would trigger people, trigger people at my school, that they would go off the rails That I would be crucified, so to speak, removed. I had no idea. When you look at this, I think God has been in this, because I had no idea. Not saying he did this, orchestrated this, but in this, all things work together for good. And they've worked together for good for us.
- [03:19]
A
Yeah, well, they have. I mean, it's just so interesting to remember back to those early conversations to watch your story. I remember reading it in World magazine, for example, and getting all the details then, but it just seemed like a different time. And now we're on the other side, where there's clear cracks in the system, where we. We now have medical institution after medical institution after medical institution backing away. Even Vanderbilt University not even offering any sort of surgeries for adults now. Certainly has happened when it comes to minors. I mean, does it all just seem like a bad dream? I mean, what happened to us?
- [03:57]
B
Yeah, it really. Really it is. And bad dream is one way to put it, but it turned out to be a good dream. Two things, you know, we clung to the truth of the clinical enterprise. I mean, I was a good child psychiatrist, I thought, and I knew my field, and I knew this was absolutely beyond the pale. And so I spoke out. The issue was truth. And then, of course, our faith, it just was totally against what we know to be true.
- [04:25]
A
Yeah. That's interesting. So what happens when you get back to the University of Louisville?
- [04:29]
B
Well, the wonders of modern technology. It was posted immediately by Heritage, and then it was out. I was outed, so to speak. Although fascinatingly, as I've gone through this, many of my faculty, a good number of them, didn't even look at it, didn't even know exactly what I said. It was spread throughout the campus. When I came back from a meeting, shortly thereafter, my chairman said, well, I'm hearing from different corners of the campus about something going on. Well, I was doing some depositions for adf, and while I was doing one of the depositions, I got a letter. Knock at the door. There's a letter that chairman wants you to pick up. It was a letter about my dismissal. I couldn't believe it. It was dismissed right then and there. Through the letter, he said, you've lost the confidence of your faculty. This type of statement, which was, of course, not true, although some of them, I think, clearly didn't like my views on transgender topics. But so that happened, and then I was gone. Yeah.
- [05:31]
A
So just immediately terminated from your position?
- [05:34]
B
Well, basically from my leadership position, yeah. I still had a faculty position. I still hung around and saw patients. But Incredibly difficult time.
- [05:43]
A
Wow, that's amazing. How did the other faculty react? Did anyone stand up for you on the campus?
- [05:50]
B
Great question. There were a number. My group probably was split down the middle in terms of supporting me, but very few of them had the courage to go into, like, the dean's office, the chair's office, to say, this is wrong now, where, you know, the classic going into a room, closing the door. Well, doctor, I agree with you, but I'm not sure that I can say this publicly.
- [06:12]
A
Wow.
- [06:12]
B
You know, that kind of timid response.
- [06:15]
A
You know, I remember about that same time, I ended up having a breakfast with a professor that was just passing through town in Colorado Springs, where I lived. And it was a meeting that was brokered by someone else, someone in pediatric medicine. I don't remember exactly the specialization, whether it was psychology or actually something different. But at Ohio State, it was really the first conversation where I heard that kind of thing, where somebody that was an academic prided themselves, you know, as academics do, on academic freedom, saying what I know to be true, trusting the evidence, going where the science goes.
- [06:58]
B
Yeah. Yep. Yep.
- [06:59]
A
This was a professor at another institution in the Midwest. State school, State University. It said the same thing. I don't agree with it. It's crazy what's happening. We've started doing it at the medical school, but I can't say anything out loud.
- [07:18]
B
Yeah.
- [07:18]
A
And at some level, you just think you have to, don't you? I mean, I don't understand. I guess it's hard for me to understand that position of somebody who says, oh, I agree with you, and I'm actually working in that field, but I'm just not going to. I'm not going to ruffle that.
- [07:34]
B
And ultimately, that's the position that I came to, at least through my behavior. I wasn't at the time. I was just putting one step in front of the other. But. But I wanted to. The beacon was truth. What is true. This is just not true. You can't do that.
- [07:47]
A
Well, and now we know how many children were the victims of this idea. I mean, it's one thing when it's theoretical. It's another thing when a school's starting to dip their toe in the water. But now we know how many schools went along with this, how many children at such a young age were impacted, and how dramatic the consequences are from this treatment that ended up being irreversible. So how did the students respond?
- [08:16]
B
Well, my very dearest students were crestfallen. They were terrified by what was happening. But many of the Kind of like lukewarm, to use that word. Just didn't want to say anything, get into trouble, whatever. But they believed in me and what I stood for. And I said, you know, should I sue? What should I do? Struggled with this, shared it with my wife. And I had been doing some expert witness for ADF for quite some time and getting to know some of them. So I called them that day. Could you help me? I'm in this situation. And it was almost laughable. They chuckled. Could we help you? Of course. That's what we do. So I met with a guy named Travis Barum, a wonderful guy who remains a friend to this day. Actually, it was a phone conference. I got on the phone, we talked for almost two hours. I paused and I said, now what do we do? I mean, most people don't consult with attorneys every day, even doctors. So I'll never forget these words. John. It was, well, Dr. Josephson, you know, you're free to do whatever you would like to do, but I will tell you, if you decide to do nothing, we would be very. Barry. Disappointed with emphasis on the very. And I remember kind of, I guess it was in the feeling of exhilaration,
- [09:34]
A
like you felt vindicated. Like, in a sense, here's my thinking.
- [09:37]
B
It was like, so this is. These are high class attorney folks. They think I have a case. They think I have a good case.
- [09:44]
A
What year was that when you decided to.
- [09:46]
B
We decided in 2018. Of course, preparing a lawsuit is a big deal. Took a long time back and forth. One of the things they did, which was amazing and I never would have predicted it, they said, next meeting, bring your wife. What? This is a big time professional deal. My wife is. That's her life. And of course, they made a compelling point, which was, if you're going to sue and get involved with this process, your wife will be very involved, whether she likes to be or not, which was true. So we would go to various conferences, meetings, and I was kind of being trumpeted by ADF as one of the new cases. She went to several people, so she got to know some of the people at the meetings. They would come up and greet her and give her a hug. So it was part of our almost fellowship group as we went along too.
- [10:33]
A
Well, I think a lot of ADF clients have had that experience that they feel like that is, especially at a time when you need a community that they provide that kind of.
- [10:42]
B
Exactly. Because people run away and hide. You can't find people to support you as much.
- [10:46]
A
Well, that's why I Wanted to ask. That's kind of where I wanted to go next and what I wanted to ask about because I felt a lot about. We're not on the other side fully, but now that we're at a different place on the trans issue in particular than just a few years ago, and you look at why was that the case, you know, what, what changed and names like J.K. rowling and Riley Gaines and, you know, people who were in the crosshairs like you and Jack Phillips and others. And. And you kind of think, you know, why, what, what do we have to credit this? You have d. Transitioners like Chloe Cole and others. There's not a lot of pastors that come to the list.
- [11:27]
B
No.
- [11:28]
A
You know, there were certainly some. Some Christians who were very clearly spoken on it, but there was also a lot of non Christians like Abigail Schreier and others. How did your church respond? I've talked to a handful of those who found themselves kind of in that kind of cultural moment and the church abandoned them. They would say that the church didn't stand with them. Maybe it wasn't quite the same situation as yours, but in something similar, I
- [11:54]
B
think abandoned would be strong. Many people, I think, didn't want to get really involved with it, but to be honest, we were trying to keep it quiet ourselves, you know.
- [12:06]
A
Yeah.
- [12:06]
B
In fact, I wouldn't talk to you.
- [12:10]
A
Yeah, there was a lot, I think, also, you know, suing a university is somewhat uncharted territory. Right.
- [12:18]
B
And when I look back on it, I say to myself, you know, I can't believe we did that.
- [12:22]
A
Why is that?
- [12:23]
B
Well, it's just my university, because the university has this aura about it. But it had to be done because it was true. The issue was truth to me.
- [12:34]
A
Yeah.
- [12:34]
B
This is not true. You can't support this. But nobody wanted to say anything until ADF came along.
- [12:42]
A
How long did the legal proceedings take?
- [12:45]
B
Well, there were lots of stops and starts. The whole process from the moment I spoke at Heritage to when I had the final ruling was probably about eight years.
- [12:57]
A
Eight years, wow.
- [12:58]
B
But the active process, we were a couple of years where not much happened, which is what happens in big time cases.
- [13:03]
A
And what happened in. What was it like being at the university during this time?
- [13:08]
B
Well, it was awful. And of course, I left fairly quickly within a year and a half. June 2019 is when I left.
- [13:16]
A
Okay.
- [13:16]
B
Yeah. People wouldn't talk to me, you know, going to the other side of the hall when you came, you know, just piddly stuff.
- [13:22]
A
From a human relations standpoint, is this within your department?
- [13:25]
B
Yeah.
- [13:26]
A
Really? So would you say you were the only one in your department at the University of Louisville that would that helped to that kind of view about biological sex?
- [13:37]
B
I think there were others, but they didn't have the courage to speak publicly. But no, I wasn't the only one, but it was more 50, 50 almost kind of what the split is now.
- [13:47]
A
So 50% of them agree with you, but they wouldn't.
- [13:50]
B
Right?
- [13:50]
A
They would. Again, as an academic. That's just. You're capitulating the entire department at that point. Right. That's the issue. Now. You've got one thing that's going to be taught and not the. Did they never have to teach on these things?
- [14:06]
B
A lot of them. We were doing clinical medicine. People would come with a problem, we would treat them, and so they could kind of avoid it. Except when transgender patient came into the clinic.
- [14:15]
A
Yeah. Did you see an uptick around this time of patients that were claiming to have gender dysphoria or, you know.
- [14:23]
B
Oh, yeah, that was an uptick. Yeah. Then we hired a faculty person who. This was her shtick. She got on it and totally full bore.
- [14:33]
A
How was that interaction?
- [14:35]
B
Incredible interaction. So I took the position of being the chief of child psychiatry. I took that seriously. That means, means all the people under me, I was responsible for their work, their faculty productivity, whatever. I wanted to see what she did in her clinic. So I went, saw a case that she saw and was absolutely appalled. Absolutely appalled.
- [14:56]
A
Was it a minor?
- [14:57]
B
Pardon me?
- [14:58]
A
Was it involving a minor?
- [14:59]
B
Yes. Yeah. 15 year old girl who came and the examination was cursory, to use that phrase, just very superficial. And this, I think, was her second visit to the clinic. And my reason for going, I wanted to see what you do because I'm responsible for it. And the exam that I saw was fairly cursory, not high level mental health, in my view. And then she called the nurse. I'm thinking, what for? The nurse had a syringe with a vial of testosterone and this was her second visit to the clinic. Wow. This clinician didn't know her very well. So then I realized the enormity of the problem. By then people had sniffed me out and the battle lines were getting drawn.
- [15:47]
A
Was this before or after the panel?
- [15:50]
B
It was just a week before the panel.
- [15:52]
A
Oh, wow.
- [15:52]
B
So all kind of handled at the same time.
- [15:55]
A
All right, so Tom, sorry, you just want to make sure the timeline here is. Is clear. So you were. You were already being consulted from ADF and others, providing some depositions, and people
- [16:08]
B
didn't Know too much about that. Those are usually private matters.
- [16:11]
A
Sure.
- [16:11]
B
Yeah. Faculty consult or can speak when they want and so on.
- [16:16]
A
Yeah. So then University of Louisville hires a clinician. This is now in your department, and you're responsible for it. And then you get. I mean, and then you get asked to speak on this heritage panel that gets published almost immediately. Yeah, I'm sure that didn't go over very well.
- [16:35]
B
Well, I thought that people believed enough in my credibility, but when you. You are ideologues. And that's. It didn't dawn on me right away that exactly what I was dealing with. But of course, it became clear that when you're an ideologue, that's. That's what you're pushing, and that's more important than anything.
- [16:52]
A
Yeah, well, we've seen that. Right, we've seen that from. Right, We've seen that from the revelation of wpath, and we've seen that in the Tavistock reports and so on. It's just that this was ideologically driven, not evidence based.
- [17:08]
B
WPATH is a perfect example of how high I was kind of, I think, intimidated initially because this wasn't my primary area of work. I became.
- [17:18]
A
So you thought maybe there was some other stuff that you didn't know about?
- [17:21]
B
Well, yeah, I was right. I thought, well, maybe I'm not up to all this stuff now. Then I found out the World Professional association of Transgender Health has a lot of non clichians in it. You can become part of that group just by asking. Then he ran across a psychiatrist who was a very respected guy I liked a lot. He said, oh, yeah, I helped start that group. And I left it because it was becoming a shambles of a professional group.
- [17:47]
A
So talk through the lawsuit. How hard did the university fight back and what was that?
- [17:54]
B
Well, our main way of fighting back was delaying. You know, we would get all these delays and, you know, legal procedures. Have something come up. And early on, they thought they had me in the back of their back pocket, clearly in their behavior, how they responded. We had a couple of what were supposed to be mediation conferences that were a joke. You know, they offered me equivalent of 50 cents, you know.
- [18:18]
A
Oh, really?
- [18:18]
B
I mean. And so my wife and I were saying they're not serious, and the attorneys agreed they're not. So it was just back and forth and delaying and some technicalities one way or the other.
- [18:30]
A
So the first place that the case was heard was at the state court.
- [18:35]
B
Right. District court in Louisville. That was in fall of 2022. That went reasonably well for us. But the university then fought back some back and forth stuff that in retrospect, they were trying to delay. We were not real optimistic at that time. My wife and I were discouraged how long this was taking, couldn't, because we'd never been involved with anything like this. But we went to the federal appeals court in Cincinnati. That was actually three years later in 2025, right? Yeah, summer of 2025. And that was an amazing experience because our attorneys had won some lower level kind of procedural points, but we hammered them there. You could just feel it.
- [19:23]
A
Yeah, well, I mean, the verdict was what, one and a half million in damages? Right, right. And I mean, that's, that's a, That's a serious. As a friend would say, that's a non.0 number right there.
- [19:37]
B
Yeah, no, so. And the result came back within two or three weeks, which was amazing. Three, zero, three nothing. Jonathan Turley, you know who. So he was following this publishing on his federal site and was given his great press. And when that was going on, I was telling my wife, you know, this thing has gotten big. Like, Jonathan Turley was national importance. And he talked about the ruling. And so that was great. Yeah.
- [20:07]
A
Well, I mean, in the meantime, you had left the school, right? Right. I mean, how do you address that? I mean, was that a sad kind of leaving? Do you look back?
- [20:20]
B
Well, one of the things I say, because I'd done well there, was popular in many circles, but they took away the right to have a retirement. We were moving to Georgia and I told my wife, you know, they were going to throw me a potluck there, some minor whatever. And I was pleasant. I said, that's fine. You beat me up. It's kind of like Paul, you know, Acts 16. You've beaten me up, throw me in jail and have them coming. Yeah, you know, it's just that type of feeling and.
- [20:49]
A
Yeah, well, it is a shame. I mean, it, it's got to be. You know, a lot of people miss the as. I think it's a line that ADF often likes to say that the, the process becomes the punishment in a lot of ways. Just the. How long it takes the right. The loss of personal relationships, the, the. The stress, the stressful part of it and, and so on.
- [21:12]
B
But at one point we decided, I told my wife I had some academic things I was going to do and do some more writing in this area. I was all taken away from me. But I said, we're going to win this case. We're going to stick through to the end. And so every roadblock we just stuck with it and kept going. And of course, ADF was great. And as well, being skilled and that ruling, I think it was 24 and then the ruling of the amount award was at 25.
- [21:41]
A
Okay. So the, the initial 24. 24 and then the ver or.
- [21:45]
B
Yeah, thanks, Mark. Yes, 24 and then.
- [21:47]
A
Right. Yeah. I mean, we've, we've talked before about how long in the state of Colorado, what they did, for example, to Jack Phillips. And that was a 13 year.
- [21:56]
B
Right.
- [21:57]
A
Vendetta from start to finish, which is just a lot of people forget that they thought it was resolved and it was all over. Do you feel at least to, to some degree vindicated, having kind of seen now the wheels come off of at least so much of this experimentation happening?
- [22:15]
B
Absolutely. No, I'm, I'm, I'm taking the victory lap. Right. I've had a professional organization wants me to talk now in a couple months and of course this organization here. Yeah, no, the, the. I won and feel, feel victorious. I feel great.
- [22:30]
A
Yeah. And you got to feel, I mean, you know, it seems like the rest of the discipline is. And not, not yet, but a lot of the discipline, a lot of the, the world of academic psychology is coming around to this or at least kind of putting the brakes on it.
- [22:44]
B
I consider ADFs my family. But. So Kristen, Kristen Wagner was writing a number of articles at this time and she pointed out that I was one of the first, if not the first, who was willing to do that. I hadn't realized that in terms of mental health, you know, the courage that this took and so forth?
- [23:04]
A
Yeah, well, there just wasn't a whole lot of data. Right. I mean, there wasn't a whole lot. Especially, you know, the whole part of it that has struck me, and I wonder kind of as a, as a, as a professional psychologist, what do you think about kind of the fact that, you know, 20, 30, 40 years ago when you were talking about believing you were in the wrong body, you were largely talking about middle aged men and then suddenly even the, you know, you Talked about the 15 year old girl and it became a bunch of teenagers and it became a bunch of preteenagers.
- [23:40]
B
Those are the first cases that I remember. I had two or three in my training. Okay, men who. Or women who had become men.
- [23:48]
A
Okay.
- [23:48]
B
Was it the other way? Male transgenders only saw two. They were, they were there and they were written about, but they were always so esoteric and used the lay phrase weird that, you know, we never paid much attention to them. And then. Yeah, the Tsunami came. Like you said, teenage girls. Yeah.
- [24:09]
A
I mean. Yeah. It's just absolutely incredible. The one thing that I wrote about when you had your. When the verdict was announced and we celebrated with you.
- [24:21]
B
I appreciate what you did there in the annual meeting. That was great. Well, not just public recognition.
- [24:26]
A
Well, having you at the conference meant a lot to us, and that was great. And people needed to see that. I mean, it just kind of felt like we were coming out of the fog of this issue. But at some level, there needs to be some. There needs to be some analysis of the medical community. You think about, for example, coming out of COVID the trust in the medical community was deeply harmed. This is another thing that has deeply harmed the trust.
- [24:56]
B
So one of the things that's happening right now as we speak, I have a friend, not a deep friend, but I became aware of him through this type of stuff. He has submitted a piece of program for the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, our annual meeting, every year.
- [25:11]
A
Okay.
- [25:11]
B
It's been rejected every year. It's good stuff. In fact, Dr. Kaltiya, you know, in Finland, the main researcher, is coming up with all this stuff now.
- [25:19]
A
This recent study out of Finland. Yeah. Just incredible.
- [25:21]
B
She was involved with all that going way back. He submitted that it would get rejected. Wow. But I found out this is kind of how the system works. We don't know so much that when these things would come in and they were good proposals. Whoa. This is kind of. We need to get the lesbian Gay Committee to decide what to do with this. Wow. And guess what? They did. I can reject it.
- [25:47]
A
I can guess. Yeah. Surprise.
- [25:48]
B
So this guy. But the tide is turning a little bit. And so he submitted another kind of thing. And with one me being done, and I'm free to do this, he's asked me to be the discussant on this proposal. So we'll see they rule on it this summer.
- [26:02]
A
Okay. How do you explain this? How can something that had so little evidence behind it Again, you know, we talked about that journey. When you initially stood up, it just seemed like an outlier movement, like a little kind of school of thought that was bubbling up. But I mean, it was hard to imagine when you think about how many aspects of child health, child well being, from educational institutions to healthcare, even to, you know, television and media and everything. I mean, this ideology took over everything. It was everywhere.
- [26:39]
B
So silly, so absurd, so fanciful.
- [26:41]
A
How did it do it, though? How did it do it? That's the deep six that I want to uncover. You how did it happen in the medical community?
- [26:48]
B
Well, the gay movement is a lot of power, but there's no simple answer that explains that. And this is actually what I've used in my whole career. And I found it useful. I found it useful in the abortion stuff. When smart people believe dumb things, evil's the only explanation, you know, really, because these are smart people.
- [27:09]
A
Right, right.
- [27:10]
B
How can you believe that a boy becomes a girl because he just says so? What a stupid idea. And there's no scientific evidence, but there's something more, and even that issue may fall short, but the evil Satan's ways to use that language just takes people away and clouds people's vision.
- [27:35]
A
I think it's one of those things that it's hard to explain outside of supernatural and even demonic activity, but it's something we need to start understanding because it did go from being a question that was, on its face absurd to not just becoming believable, but became dominant. It became a dominant idea and people aspects of it. Now, if you did, you got your treatment, right?
- [28:05]
B
Exactly. I know. If you did.
- [28:07]
A
And I think that's important of the answer too. Right. There was an awful lot of intimidation. There was a lot of people would be intimidated. You talked about your colleagues who were intimidated by the threats or even just
- [28:19]
B
came off our local paper headline, university professor, blah, blah, blah, transphobic. Well, I didn't want to have that in front of everybody.
- [28:29]
A
Sure.
- [28:29]
B
And of course, wasn't true.
- [28:31]
A
Right.
- [28:31]
B
And transphobic is not a legally or linguistically correct term. But anyway, how did that happen? And I think there are days where I still wonder. But the forces of evil, I think are big.
- [28:48]
A
Do you regret taking the stand that you did?
- [28:50]
B
Not in a minute.
- [28:52]
A
At any point, did you.
- [28:53]
B
You know, I think at certain points my wife and family, particularly my wife just was hammered so much, you know, but then she got to be kind of a research assistant of mine and just on the Internet all the time and look what they're saying about you now.
- [29:07]
A
And actually that's hard for a wife to read.
- [29:09]
B
Well, well, yeah, it was, you know, but she found her. Ever heard of a guy named the Slowly Boiled Frog? I've heard of the. The.
- [29:18]
A
The analogy.
- [29:18]
B
No, but so this guy, he came up with it be for his own reasons. A gay activist in South Miami. They sniffed out anything to defend the gay community. The gay project, transgenders, he sniffed out. And so there's another problem in the landscape. And he said that, well, we've got to crush this one. There's some professor out in the Midwest who's doing this or that. Yeah, it was unbelievable, the stuff that showed up.
- [29:47]
A
Well, listen, I am grateful for the stand that you did take. I mean, it is, but I don't regret it. Yeah, yeah. Well, what did you learn about God through it all?
- [29:57]
B
Mainly that his prescription for evil and bad is the right one, is a good one, is the only one, and that the world is full of evil, I think. And I came to this conference with this conviction too. As Christians, we're often pleasant, kind, loving, loving. But people do bad things that they shouldn't do, and our worldview teaches us. By the way, I like worldview. You know, Sigmund Freud used it in his writing. Weltanschaum.
- [30:29]
A
Yeah, that's right.
- [30:30]
B
And was a very widely used term for our textbook, which became a textbook handbook of spirituality, Worldview and clinical practice. I brought it to your attention, but really wasn't Maybe, I think 20 consumption, but had a great number of great authors and senior psychiatrists at Harvard. A guy named Armin Nikolai.
- [30:51]
A
Oh, of course. Yeah.
- [30:52]
B
He wrote with us on that and pointed out that Weltan Chong. An intellectual hypothesis addressing all of man's overriding. Anyway, it's not a bad term.
- [31:04]
A
No, no, I think it's.
- [31:07]
B
I mean, you have fun with the.
- [31:10]
A
This is the backdrop that folks may or may not know. Some of our faithful listeners know that Dr. Carl Truman and I have gone back and forth on the meaning of the word worldview. We actually did a conversation like this on it. But I do think there's a wonderful history to the term. And there's a wonderful Christian history to the term. When the Dutch theologians grabbed ahold of it and took it. And it does communicate something that. That I think is.
- [31:37]
B
There's a rich meaning to it. Absolutely. Yeah.
- [31:39]
A
And you could see it, right? I mean, what explains running headlong into an ideology without evidence backing it up? Well, taking a hypothesis like this, that again, on its face was absurd. What could explain that? You have to be committed. You have to be committed outside of the evidence to a particular way of thinking about people and a particular way of thinking about sexuality and a people.
- [32:06]
B
And here's another thing that I found out in my work here. Many of the people who write the articles there was a textbook that came out from the American Psychiatric association. Ninety percent of the authors, it's like a multi authored thing, are gay. And the worldview that they had did not allow them to see this issue any differently. Yeah, and we see that again and again. The American Academy of Pediatrics is particularly beholden to the gay community in this part, this aspect, there is.
- [32:40]
A
There is a level at which that there's going to have to be a reckoning when something as absurd was taken as fact and people really suffered because of it.
- [32:52]
B
Yes.
- [32:52]
A
We have to go back and figure out as a society, how did we let this happen?
- [32:58]
B
And, you know, more. Yeah, go ahead.
- [33:00]
A
I mean, really, in the same way as, you know, how was it possible that we let, you know, the experiments on, you know, black Americans and the Tuskegee tribe. I mean, how could we let that happen? Or the forced sterilizations of what. How do we let this happen? I mean, we're talking about the same kind of level of project that was done by in the name of medicine or in the name of medical progress. And we can't never let it happen.
- [33:30]
B
Another thing that helped me. We've got to share this. So as I was getting into this and I realized now my area is children, families, human development, actual clinical narcissism. Those are things I've written on. Wow. I was honest to myself academically. Now you don't know this. Then I realized nobody else does either.
- [33:49]
A
Well, I have a question, if you have. Your specialization had to do with narcissism. Is there an alignment between narcissism and those who.
- [33:59]
B
Well, I think there is. Between that and gayness. Yes. And to the extent that that's linked in with transgenderism. Yeah.
- [34:07]
A
I mean, to the extent where you say we need to. Because it did. For this ideology to go forward, it kind of required a remaking of an awful lot of society.
- [34:17]
B
Right.
- [34:18]
A
And it just seems like that's a pretty bold thing to say.
- [34:21]
B
I didn't have a lot of background in it and I did a lot of study. I became aware of a guy named Paul McHugh. Do you know Paul McHugh?
- [34:28]
A
One of the first who exists.
- [34:32]
B
He's now 95. I talked with him a few weeks back, in fact, when the issue came out in the place first repress of my victory. He was the first guy to call me. Paul McHugh was called me within an hour, an hour or two, it came out.
- [34:45]
A
He fought the good fight for a long time on this. And he was at what institution?
- [34:49]
B
He was at John. John's.
- [34:51]
A
John Hoskins. Yeah, yeah.
- [34:52]
B
But he. Right. Bring him up because. So I said, you know, I'm going to go talk with him. He said, oh, Alan, I'd love to. His British accent is still there. Have you come up? So in one of my meetings, I went over to Baltimore. We had a wonderful two, three, Hour conversation. But he had looked at this and said, which I'm sure you're familiar in your work here, the only thing that will change this is massive lawsuit. And so that's why this thing in New York a couple months back, because there'll be more. And when there are more, the problem is this isn't going to be quite as easily ferreted out as you're familiar with a false memory syndrome business.
- [35:31]
A
No, no, tell me.
- [35:32]
B
Well, how people would come in, they'd have all kinds of problems. And the reason I have these problems is my father raped me when I was a teenager. And then they would have dreams. And there were clinicians who bought into
- [35:44]
A
that, that he have suppressed memories that have come up.
- [35:47]
B
And so through some of his testimony, some of his work was crucial in some of these legal victories. Paul McEwen and Scott Few were to brilliant. So then they lost a couple of cases and big time cases like 5 million, 6 million, that's all it took. They didn't hear about it anymore.
- [36:04]
A
No, I mean, I don't think there's been an ideological kind of revival or transformation of the community. There's still that kind of deeply held radical individualism at the core of this. But there is an awful lot of liability fear. And you know, look, if that stops kids from getting castrated, then so be it.
- [36:26]
B
So look, after the bleeding case, there are 20, some 25, 26 cases on the docket. Now right now Chloe Cole is another one.
- [36:35]
A
Chloe is.
- [36:36]
B
She has got some legal stuff going and we'll see where that goes. Yeah, but they were so arrogant, you know, this is what you need to do or your child will kill themselves. Oh, just turns your stomach. They manipulation.
- [36:50]
A
Well, that's the thing that I think emerged. I talked to Chloe about this, actually. Her story and then the New York story had this quick diagnosis, the same thing you were talking about, rush to medicalization, which is what you were talking about. And then the fear mongering with the parents. So much damage was done with that suicide threat. And of course now we know that it didn't. It was completely fabricated.
- [37:17]
B
And the fear mongering of the parents, that's where I've come in much of the time. People will see me for a while. Much of my professional work was heading family therapy section in our child psychiatry group. And yeah, parents were just devastated and confused.
- [37:33]
A
Sure.
- [37:33]
B
And not strong enough to say the doctor, you're the one that's the crazy one. Some of them did, but they were dismissed.
- [37:40]
A
They were dismissed. Well, you know, I Tell you, your story reminds me in a very different way. But there is something about. You were so early when you took your stand and found yourself really isolated in so many ways. Another ADF client is a Wisconsin mother whose daughter during COVID was. Got online. And then when she went back to school, the school officials decided to try to fast track her into a, you know, a transgender identity. And you. Yeah, but I just remember at one point realizing as this woman was telling her story, her friends questioned her, her church questioned her, all the teachers questioned her, the doctors questioned her.
- [38:27]
B
Yeah.
- [38:28]
A
And it's a pretty big group. She was pretty much alone, but she said, I know my daughter.
- [38:34]
B
Yeah.
- [38:35]
A
And of course, her daughter was questioning her, too. Yeah.
- [38:37]
B
And the daughter's questioning her body even.
- [38:39]
A
Even worse. Yeah. The daughter was telling her she hated her. But you know what? She. She. She stood on truth. And to your point, that's where it lands, what is true.
- [38:49]
B
Yeah. Yeah. And those kind of people deserve all the respect, you know?
- [38:53]
A
Yeah, that's right.
- [38:53]
B
All the respect.
- [38:54]
A
As do you. Thanks for sharing your story with us again. We've told your story before, but it's just. It's important, I think, for people to hear, when they can, from people who had to make the tough choice. And the tough choice, you know, you had no idea what that was going to mean.
- [39:10]
B
No, no, we didn't.
- [39:11]
A
And it was a choice, though, that has made it a lot easier on a lot of other people who now can speak out with confidence and know. Know that they've got support and so on. So I appreciate what you did.
- [39:30]
B
I got so much help from so many people. I remember meeting with Dave Stevens, president of cmda. We were talking about this, and I was sorting what should I do? And he said, well, if you don't do anything, you know, the next guy that comes along and students will see this. You're not a position of prominence at the. At that point. If they could do this to Alan Josephson, they'll do it to anybody. They'll do it to anybody. And. And when you're. See, I had the advantage of being at the end of my career and I'd achieved a number of things and felt comfortable with what I'd done. And so I felt fine with taking on the establishment. But young people, you know, they've got young, young children and whatever, they can't face it. But if you don't do that, they'll. They'll be. And that. That was very compelling to me. I didn't do it for just other people, but I realized there would be benefits if I did this. And I found so many people have thanked me, I've just found that to be true.
- [40:22]
A
That's great.