The Trump administration in mid-March directed major biomedical research institutes to study the physical and psychological effects of gender transitions among children, reporting that it infuriated some critics.
At the time, Matthew Memory, acting director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), emailed several NIH directors, saying that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was “instructed to fund research in several specific areas of chemical and surgical amputation.” It has been reported. HHS is the parent agency of the NIH.
Two specific areas of government interest were “remorse and deterrence after social transition, and following chemical and surgical amputations of children and adults” and “outcomes of children undergoing social transition and/or chemical and surgical amputations.”
Several NIH employees confirmed the order to nature NPRboth outlets reported.
“This is very important to the president and the secretary. [of the HHS, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]The email was read, according to the outlet.
“They hope to announce funding within the next six months to make this move,” NPR reported.
The reported directive comes shortly after an avalanche of grant cancellations for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ+) research. The Trump administration has cancelled more than 270 such grants worth at least $125 million, NBC News It has been reported. (Related: Youngkin Board will end “gender positive care” at Major University Hospital)
The White House orders the NIH to investigate “remorse” and “damage.”https://t.co/vltginuhjw
– Rob Stein (@robsteinnews) April 11, 2025
“What they’re looking for is a political answer, not a scientific one,” Adrian Shanker, former deputy director of HHS health policy under President Joe Biden, told NPR. “That should be wary for anyone who cares about the scientific integrity of the National Institutes of Health.”
Harry Barbie, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told NPR that the term “chemical or surgical amputation” is “deeply offensive.”
“The term does not exist in serious scientific or public health discourse. Language has been historically used to condemn trans people.[s] “Regret” and “damage” can be weaponized,” Barbie added.
Barbie has supported “including rigorous and ethically grounded studies on all aspects of transgender health, and experiences of drans,” but he added that such studies “dolesced the pathologies of transitions and not undermine the overwhelming evidence that gender-affirming care is beneficial and even saves life for the majority of people who want such services.”
Barbie, who identified as non-binary and queer, naturally said that the proposed study would try to narrow the views of trans people as people who regretted seeking medical transitions. “If ideology takes priority over scientific merit, it threatens the entire scientific enterprise.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua3pveydtxq
Some the study It showed that many people who have undergone medical gender transitions do not appear to regret it. However, the studies do not include a control group, and their conclusions are further complicated by the lack of long-term research and the health risks that may follow the health transition.
Michael Biggs, an associate professor of sociology at Oxford University, told NPR. “This is an unstudied population to collect systematic data.”
President Donald Trump signed the January 20th executive order declare We officially recognize only two genders, male and female, and degenerate the substitution of “unchanging biological reality” into the gender fluidity of the “identity-based, inchoate social concept.”
