Two leaders of elite California medical schools sat before a congressional committee this week and could not, or would not, give a straight answer to a simple question: Can a biological male have a baby?

Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., put the question directly to Dr. Sam Hawgood, chancellor of the University of California, San Francisco, and Dr. Steve Dubinett, dean of the UCLA School of Medicine. Neither offered a yes or no. The exchange, captured during a House Education and Workforce Committee hearing titled "Training Activists, Not Physicians: The Impact of DEI on Medical Schools," laid bare just how far gender ideology has burrowed into the institutions training America's next generation of doctors.

Miller came armed with the schools' own documents. She cited UCSF's classroom guide, "Framework for Gender and Sex Concepts in Teaching," which advises medical students against using the term "pregnant women" and instructs them to say "pregnant people" instead. She then turned to UCLA, where a required OB-GYN course tells students not to "assume gender identity."

The questions they wouldn't answer

The hearing's sharpest moments came in rapid-fire exchanges between Miller and the two witnesses. Miller asked Hawgood who "pregnant people" are compared to "pregnant women." Hawgood replied that the terminology is "part of a curriculum to help our students who are facing a wide diversity of patients." He added that the "vast majority of pregnancies are in women" and that he had "absolutely no problem with the term pregnant women."

That wasn't good enough for Miller, who pressed harder: "Has a non-biological woman ever had a baby?"

Hawgood responded that "a transgender person can." Miller shot back: "That's not a biological woman. Has a non-biological woman ever had a baby?" When Hawgood failed to give a direct answer, Miller's verdict was blunt: "It's ridiculous."

The questioning then shifted to Dubinett. Miller cited a UCLA class from May 2026 that included a disclaimer stating that while it uses the terms "she" and "women," it does not intend to exclude "those who have a uterus but do not identify with these terms." Miller asked what that even means.

"Can someone have a uterus but not be a woman? Because it seems like your school is promoting that ridiculous idea," she said. Dubinett responded that the school is "treating transgender people" and doing so "in compliance with state and federal law." He did not name the laws. When Miller pressed for a yes-or-no answer, Dubinett began, "Again, I would, " before the committee chair cut him off, ending Miller's time.

Curriculum documents tell the story

What made the exchange so damaging for both witnesses was that Miller was not relying on hearsay. She quoted directly from institutional documents the schools themselves produced. UCSF's teaching guide explicitly steers students away from the phrase "pregnant women." UCLA's required coursework instructs future obstetricians not to assume a patient's gender identity, in a specialty devoted almost entirely to female anatomy and reproduction.

The Washington Examiner reported that the hearing also highlighted the broader controversy over whether these schools have complied with a Trump executive order aimed at eliminating DEI from federally funded education programs. Miller argued that both UCLA and UCSF have failed to comply. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., was quoted separately saying, "It is not polarizing to say that women are a biological reality and should be treated and protected as such."

The hearing's scope extended beyond gender terminology. The committee examined whether DEI initiatives at UCLA, UCSF, and the University of Illinois have shaped admissions policies and contributed to antisemitism on campus. But it was the pregnancy and biology exchange that drew the sharpest public attention.

When politicians on both sides of the aisle are caught saying one thing and doing another, voters notice. The same scrutiny that falls on lawmakers whose public image clashes with private behavior ought to apply to university leaders who claim to teach science while their own curricula treat biological sex as optional.

Miller calls for accreditation consequences

After the hearing, Miller provided an exclusive statement to Fox News Digital that pulled no punches.

"It shouldn't take a medical degree to answer a basic biology question. This hearing exposed that our medical schools have become consumed by political ideology that they're losing sight of reality. Patients just want doctors grounded in common sense. Medical schools that abandon scientific truth should lose their accreditation."

That last line, about accreditation, is where the hearing moves from spectacle to substance. Accreditation is the lifeline of any medical school. Without it, graduates cannot sit for licensing exams, hospitals will not hire them, and federal funding dries up. Miller did not introduce legislation or announce a formal effort. But the threat, stated publicly from a committee hearing room, puts medical schools on notice.

Just The News reported that both Hawgood and Dubinett repeatedly avoided giving direct answers throughout the hearing, reinforcing Miller's broader argument that ideology has overtaken scientific rigor at these institutions. Fox News Digital reached out to both witnesses for additional comment; no responses were reported.

The question of what medical schools teach, and what language they require students to adopt, matters far beyond campus politics. These are the institutions producing the physicians who will deliver babies, diagnose diseases, and make life-or-death decisions. If a future OB-GYN cannot say plainly that pregnancy is a biological function of women, patients have a right to wonder what else has been sacrificed to ideology.

The deeper problem

Defenders of gender-inclusive language in medicine argue it helps clinicians treat transgender patients with sensitivity. Hawgood gestured at this when he described the curriculum as preparation for "a wide diversity of patients." Dubinett cited compliance with state and federal law, though he named no specific statute.

But there is a difference between treating every patient with dignity and rewriting the language of biology itself. No one disputes that a small number of transgender individuals seek medical care related to reproductive organs. The question is whether that reality justifies training an entire generation of doctors to avoid the word "women" when discussing pregnancy, a condition that, as Hawgood himself acknowledged, occurs in the "vast majority" of cases in biological women.

The gap between those two positions is where ideology fills the vacuum. When a medical school's own documents tell students not to say "pregnant women," the institution has moved beyond clinical sensitivity into political instruction. And when the leaders of those schools cannot answer a direct biological question in front of Congress, the problem is no longer theoretical.

Accountability for public officials and institutions is a recurring theme in Washington. Whether it involves city council members failing to disclose conflicts or university chancellors dodging basic questions, the pattern is the same: leaders who refuse to give straight answers when the facts are inconvenient.

Miller's hearing did not produce new legislation or a formal investigation. What it produced was a public record, on camera, under oath-adjacent conditions, of two medical school leaders unable to affirm that only biological women can become pregnant. That record now exists for voters, patients, and policymakers to evaluate.

Meanwhile, the institutions in question continue to receive federal funding, train future physicians, and shape the language those physicians will use with patients. The curriculum documents Miller cited remain in effect. No changes were announced. And the leaders of institutions Americans trust with their health walked out of the hearing without having answered the simplest question in biology.

If the people running America's medical schools cannot say out loud what every expectant mother already knows, the problem isn't a lack of sensitivity. It's a lack of honesty.