Washington State University Suspends Medical Course Days After Single Activist's Complaint"

It took Washington State University nine months to approve a medical education course examining youth gender medicine. It took just two days to suspend it after a single activist blogger sounded the alarm.

The rapid reversal has ignited a fierce debate about academic freedom, raising uncomfortable questions: Should universities bow to external pressure campaigns? Who decides what doctors are allowed to learn? And how much power should activists wield over academic institutions?

The Timeline That Shocked Faculty

The course in question wasn't hastily thrown together. The Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) spent nine months working with WSU's continuing medical education office to ensure the video series met national accreditation standards. On June 2, 2025, the university gave its approval.

The course offered physicians continuing medical education credits for watching presentations from SEGM's 2023 international academic conference. Topics included brain science, treatment protocols, and how different countries approach gender dysphoria in young people—particularly the more cautious, psychotherapy-first approaches adopted by health authorities in the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Finland.

For months, the course ran without incident. Healthcare professionals across the country earned their CME credits. Then came October 29.

Transgender activist Erin Reed published a critical article on her "Erin in the Morning" Substack, labeling SEGM an "anti-trans hate group"—a designation the Southern Poverty Law Center made in 2023, which SEGM strongly disputes as politically motivated. Reed invited her readers to file complaints with the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the body that accredits institutions like WSU.

The response was swift. Within hours, complaints flooded in. By October 31—just two days later—the course was suspended.

"I am very sorry about this situation — I've never seen anything like this from a national accrediting body," a director of WSU's continuing medical education office wrote to SEGM in an email obtained by Fox News Digital.

Reed celebrated the suspension on Bluesky: "I'm pleased to announce that following our reporting, multiple people have reported that a formal inquiry is being made into SEGM's accreditation, and that the CME courses are at least temporarily pulled down."

Faculty Divided: Academic Freedom vs. Ethical Oversight

The controversy has split WSU's faculty down the middle, exposing deeper fault lines about how universities should handle contentious topics.

On one side stands Dr. Erica Li, an assistant professor of pediatrics who introduced SEGM to the accreditation team. In an impassioned open letter, Li described the organization as "responsible and evidence-based" in a field increasingly shaped by political motives rather than scientific inquiry.

"I urge the university not to bow to activist pressure," Li wrote, framing the suspension as a test of institutional courage. "This is about whether we stand for academic freedom or allow external campaigns to dictate what our faculty and students can examine."

On the other side, faculty members posting to the WSU Senate discussion board raised concerns about oversight of external educational partnerships with "potential clinical and ethical implications." They called for more faculty involvement in vetting courses that touch on politically sensitive medical topics.

The divide reflects a broader dilemma facing universities nationwide: How do institutions balance legitimate concerns about course quality with the risk of censorship? Where's the line between responsible oversight and caving to pressure?

"Almost Immediately After": The Speed Raises Red Flags

SEGM officials say they were blindsided by how fast the investigation materialized.

"We were perplexed by how quickly the ACCME acted to open an inquiry into the course — and by how rapidly it was suspended," a SEGM spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "The timing was striking: it occurred almost immediately after an activist published a blog post criticizing the course. That simply isn't enough time to have meaningfully reviewed several hours of educational content for factual accuracy or compliance."

The spokesperson pointed out the jarring contrast: "The course had been available for months without any intervention. The sudden reversal suggests the process was driven more by external pressure than by a careful scientific review."

The speed of the action has become the focal point for critics who see the suspension as capitulation rather than due diligence. If the course material was problematic, why did it take an activist campaign to trigger scrutiny? If it wasn't problematic, why pull it so quickly?

Dr. Graham McMahon, president of the ACCME, told "Erin in the Morning" that the characterization of SEGM "raises questions that appear appropriate for an inquiry." But he hasn't addressed concerns about the compressed timeline or whether complaints were evaluated for merit before launching the investigation.

What This Means for Medical Education

The WSU case isn't happening in a vacuum. It's part of a larger pattern where asking certain scientific questions in gender medicine is treated as inherently suspect.

"Across the U.S., CME courses on youth gender dysphoria overwhelmingly present only one perspective," SEGM noted. "Meanwhile, European health authorities in the U.K., Sweden, and Finland — after conducting systematic evidence reviews — have moved toward more cautious, psychotherapy-first approaches for gender dysphoric youth. Those developments have received almost no representation in American CME programs."

The organization's course was designed to close that gap, giving physicians access to the full international evidence base. Yet while many CME programs contain claims that go unchallenged, SEGM's carefully vetted course was singled out for scrutiny within 48 hours of activist complaints.

"That imbalance raises serious questions about whether ideology is shaping what doctors are allowed to learn — which erodes trust in the system and harms the already vulnerable population we all aim to serve," SEGM said.

The controversy follows similar incidents at other prestigious institutions. Earlier in 2025, Harvard Medical School postponed a "transgender health" course after legal scrutiny. A McMaster University research team led by Dr. Gordon Guyatt faced activist pressure after publishing systematic reviews finding "low or very low" certainty of evidence that puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries improve overall well-being in gender-dysphoric youth. The team issued a public apology in August.

The Bigger Question: Who Controls Academic Discourse?

At its core, this controversy asks a fundamental question about power in higher education: Who gets to decide what's taught, studied, and debated?

Should universities respond rapidly to community concerns, even if it means suspending courses before full investigations? Or should they resist external pressure campaigns to protect academic inquiry, even when the topics are controversial?

The answer may depend on your perspective. Activists argue they're protecting vulnerable communities from harmful misinformation disguised as science. Faculty defending the course argue they're protecting doctors' ability to make informed decisions based on the full range of international evidence.

What's clear is that the nine-month approval followed by the 48-hour suspension has created a precedent that universities nationwide are watching closely.

WSU spokesperson Pam Scott said in a statement: "We are working with the ACCME to confirm that all accredited materials comply with ACCME standards. While this process is ongoing, course materials are suspended. We remain committed to providing high-quality, evidence-based Continuing Medical Education courses."

The videos remain available online for public viewing, but healthcare professionals cannot earn CME credits until the investigation concludes. The university has until November 16 to provide ACCME with documentation showing how it approved the course.

As the inquiry proceeds, one thing is certain: The speed of this suspension has raised more questions than it's answered. And those questions extend far beyond one course at one university—they strike at the heart of academic freedom in an age of instant online mobilization.

The final outcome may determine whether universities can still serve as places where difficult questions are examined, or whether they've become institutions where the loudest voices determine what's permissible to discuss.

The course materials were developed from presentations at SEGM's 2023 international academic conference. SEGM disputes its characterization as a hate group and describes itself as an organization advocating for evidence-based approaches to gender dysphoria treatment. The investigation is ongoing.