As President Donald Trump’s administration moves to restrict federal funding for “gender ideology,” new scrutiny is falling on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for continuing to fund transgender-related research.
A review conducted by The College Fix found that since Trump took office in January, the NIH has awarded nearly $3 million in new grants to studies focusing on “gender-affirming care,” transgender health, and related issues — despite an executive order banning such promotion.
The review used NIH’s public grant database and searched terms including “transgender,” “gender-affirming,” and “gender identity.” Among the eight grants found were projects at University of Wisconsin-Madison, UC San Diego, Boston College, Princeton, Northwestern, and University of Colorado — all of which had previously received taxpayer dollars and were granted new funds under the current administration.
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A notable example: the NIH awarded $680,000 to UW-Madison for a study on “social support for transgender and nonbinary people and its impacts on health and well-being.” Another $250,000 went to UC San Diego to study “Systems Improvement for Psychosocial Safety in Transgender Care.”
While some critics contend these grants contradict President Trump’s executive orders, policy experts say the administration needs to clarify the line between “promoting gender ideology” and conducting research.
“The executive order bans federal funding for promoting gender ideology, but it does not seem to clearly forbid using funds to research trans-identified and gender dysphoric groups more broadly,” Joseph Figliolia, a policy analyst at the conservative Manhattan Institute, told The Fix.
Figliolia suggested that many of the grants were likely approved before Trump’s policies were fully implemented, and the NIH may still be realigning with the new administration’s priorities.
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“I’ve seen stories in recent days about the NIH terminating very similar grants to the ones you outlined,” he said, “which suggests to me that the decision was made in advance and everyone is still getting on the same page.”
In his critique of the UC San Diego study, Figliolia said the researchers appear to assume discrimination and stigma are the main causes of health disparities among transgender individuals — a conclusion he argues is unsubstantiated.
“The authors seem to just assert that trans-identified people experience discrimination in healthcare settings… but that’s still a hypothesis, not a proven conclusion,” he said.
He also highlighted concerns that trans-identifying individuals with high levels of rejection sensitivity or psychiatric comorbidities may report discrimination in ambiguous situations, skewing data.
Additionally, Figliolia raised red flags about the UC study’s endorsement of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) — an organization explicitly condemned in a Trump executive order and criticized internationally.
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“The UK’s Cass Review determined that WPATH’s guidelines were unreliable,” he said. “And when Johns Hopkins research didn’t support their views, WPATH reportedly suppressed the findings.”
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Other critics echoed Figliolia’s concerns. Jared Ross, a senior fellow at the medical watchdog group Do No Harm, called the continued funding of these studies “an issue of agency oversight” and slammed the NIH for supporting what he described as “divisive gender and DEI pseudoscience.”
“While decreasing HIV, improving mental health, and promoting patient safety are all noble causes, this research should not be restricted to specific populations based on group membership,” Ross said. “These studies promote gender confusion in vulnerable teenagers and perpetuate harmful sex stereotypes under the guise of gender diversity.
Ross said his group is prepared to challenge the NIH’s funding decisions in court, if necessary.
“President Trump made clear that federal dollars should not fund child sex-change procedures or gender ideology,” he said. “We are confident that the courts will agree and uphold the administration’s actions based on international evidence showing these interventions can be harmful.”
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The Fix reached out to NIH, UC San Diego, UW-Madison, and individual project leads for comment. Only a spokesperson from UW-Madison responded, stating the university had “no information to share.”
The Trump administration has begun terminating similar NIH grants in recent weeks, signaling a broader crackdown on projects tied to gender identity, DEI programs, and other cultural flashpoints that clash with its policy agenda.
As the policy battles continue, experts like Figliolia say the administration must offer clearer guidance about which types of research fall under the gender ideology ban, and whether studies analyzing transgender populations — even without explicitly endorsing gender transition procedures — are permitted under current rules.
“The distinction matters,” he said. “If the administration wants to eliminate activist-driven research, it needs to define the boundaries now — or risk agencies continuing to fund it by default.”
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