Trump Administration Kills LGBTQ Health Studies
The administration canceled grants for research on LGBTQ health issues, claiming it did "nothing to enhance the health of many Americans."
The Trump administration canceled at least 68 grants to 46 institutions, totaling about $40 million, that had been awarded to study issues related to LGBTQ health.
Some of the grant money was already spent, but at least $1.36 million — and likely more — in future support has been pulled as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to target what it calls “ideologically-driven” science.
That is part of a larger effort to purge the federal government of — and to pressure the private sector to eliminate — diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and programs, including anything that acknowledges the existence of transgender identity.
Most of the studies funded by the revoked grant money — which had been awarded by the National Institutes of Health, an agency under the purview of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — were related to sexual minorities, including research focused on HIV prevention, cancer, youth suicide, and bone health.
Spokesman Andrew Nixon said HHS is “dedicated to restoring our agencies to their tradition of upholding gold-standard, evidence-based science.”
One canceled project at Vanderbilt University had been studying the health of more than 1,200 LGBTQ people over the age of 50. Tara McKay, who leads Vanderbilt’s LGBTQ+ Policy Lab, told the Associated Press that the money had largely been spent, but the grant won’t be renewed in April.
As a result, the long-term results of the study — which sought to investigate reasons for health disparities within the LGBTQ community — will likely be spoiled.
McKay says the project had already generated two dozen published papers, including work on training doctors to provide better health care to LGBTQ individuals, which increased the likelihood that subjects would receive important cancer screenings and other preventive care, which, in turn, “saves us a lot of money in health care and save lives.”
Many of the termination letters justified pulling the LGBTQ-related funding by claiming that research into LGBTQ-related issues was “unscientific,” no longer aligned with HHS priorities, or did “nothing to enhance the health of many Americans.”
“My project’s been accused of having no benefit to the American people,” McKay said. “And, you know, queer and trans folks are Americans also.”
During the first Trump administration, the White House didn’t interfere with the funding or focus of NIH-driven studies. But that has changed and President Donald Trump has shown more interest in dictating the types of research that taxpayer dollars should be spent on.
Upon taking office earlier this year, Trump issued an executive order declaring that the United States would no longer recognize gender identity as valid and banned federal funds from being used to finance what conservatives derisively call “gender ideology.”
As a result, the NIH’s Sexual and Gender Minority Research Office, which coordinated grants related to LGBTQ-related health studies, has since been disbanded.
Previously, it was unusual for NIH grants to be canceled, except in rare instances of fraud.
Whitney Wharton, an Atlanta-based researcher, told Roll Call that a grant she had received was canceled by the NIH because the research– looking at resources for LGBTQ people who are aging — involved transgender people.
“It’s literally a 180,” she said. “There was no warning, other than the writing on the wall, politically.”
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