How Trans Activist Erin Reed Won a Battle Against Youth Gender Medicine Skeptics
I obtained a trove of internal communications documenting how Ms. Reed's advocacy led the body that oversees continuing medical education for doctors to void a course that cast doubt on this field.
I have an article out in The New York Sun today in which I break the news that transgender activist and Substacker Erin Reed succeeded in her campaign to undo the accreditation of a series of continuing medical education, or CME, courses that cast doubt on pediatric gender medicine. In the fall, the reporting in Ms. Reed’s Substack about these courses, which were created by the Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine, or SEGM, and accredited by Washington State University, or WSU, fueled an activist outcry.
Behind the scenes, the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, or ACCME, which regulates the nation’s CME courses, launched an investigation. As I report for The Sun, the investigation was based on the only inquiry the ACCME received to have come in before the organization compelled WSU to take down the SEGM CME course series; WSU took the courses down an hour after Ms. Reed ran her first story on the matter. And I further report that the wording of that inquiry was nearly identical to portions of an email that Ms. Reed’s staff reporter, s. baum, sent to a WSU spokesperson inquiring about the university’s accreditation of the SEGM course series. Baum made a particular point of the Southern Poverty Law Center, or SPLC, having designated SEGM a hate group, a dubious designation that I’ve covered before.
In the end, the ACCME voided WSU’s accreditation of the SEGM course series and the university decided not to object.
This Substack of mine serves as an appendix to my article in The Sun, which I encourage you to read. Below, I will include screenshots of the numerous internal documents I obtained and that informed my reporting, including:
S. Baum’s communications with WSU
Internal WSU deliberations on how to respond publicly to the imbroglio
Emails from a WSU LGBTQ group expressing dismay over the university’s work with SEGM
An email to that LGBTQ group from a City University of New York graduate student and trans activist
The assessments of the SEGM course series written by anonymous reviewers who the ACCME recruited for its investigation
Letters between WSU and the ACCME.
Below is the October 23 email from Ms. Reed’s staffer, S. Baum, to WSU spokesperson Pam Scott that began the imbroglio. Take note of the following wording, which will come up again later on when I detail the complaint that gave rise to the investigation by the ACCME: