Given the systematic attempts of the Trump administration to deprive their medical and legal rights to trans people, and their abrupt termination of the subsidies focused on LGBTQ+health, the notification of termination of the health research of transgender and non -binary people, was not unexpected.
For researchers, Jae A. Puckett (Professor of University of Michigan) and Paz Galupo (professor at the University of Washington), who study the experiences of trans and non -binary people, have collectively dedicated almost 50 years of scientific career to develop ways of addressing health disparities that negatively affect these communities.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) published a call for projects on this subject, and both researchers successfully requested the support for a study that had ended for four years, on resilience in trans communities.
However, its trans health project became one of the hundreds of subsidies canceled for ideological reasons. The cancellation notification indicated that the subsidy was no longer adjusted to the priorities of the agency and claimed that this work was not based on scientific research.
These cancellations of subsidies undermine decades of scientific research on gender diversity by dismissing research findings and purifying data. During Trump’s current mandate, the NIH sexual and gender minority research office was dismantled, references to people LGBTQ+ of health -related websites were eliminated and the data sets withdrew from public access.
The effects of ending the health research of trans people have an impact throughout the scientific community, the communities to which this work and the economy of the United States serves.
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Studying resilience; In the voice of researchers
The mental health focused on trans and non -binary health has grown considerably in recent years. Over time, this work has expanded beyond understanding the difficulties facing these communities to also study their resilience and positive vital experiences.
Resilience is usually understood as the ability to recover in the face of challenges. For trans and non -binary people suffering from stigma and discrimination for gender reasons, resilience can manifest in various ways. It can simply consist of surviving in a transphobic climate or being a model to follow for other trans and non -binary people.
As a result of stigma and discrimination for gender reasons, trans and non -binary people experience diverse disparities in health, from high rates of psychological anguish to a greater risk of suffering from chronic diseases and poor physical health.
Given these challenges, and the growing antitrans legislation in the United States, we believe that studying resilience in these communities can contribute ideas to counteract the harmful effects of these tensions.
With the support of the NIH, we started our work seriously at 2022. The project was based on many years of research of our teams before the subsidy. From the beginning, we collaborate with members of the trans and non -binary community to ensure that our research will conform to the needs of the community.
When our subsidy ended, we were about to finish the third year of our four -year project. We had compiled data from more than 600 trans and non -binary participants throughout the United States and began to follow its progress over time.
We had developed a new way of measuring resilience in trans and non -binary people and we were about to publish a second measure specifically adapted to people of color.
The termination of our subsidy, and other similar ones, harms our immediate research team, the communities we work with and the field in general.
Loss of scientific personnel
For many investigators in trans health, losses derived from these cuts go beyond employment.
Our project served as an opportunity for students and professionals at the beginning of their career who participated in the study, providing them with the research and mentoring experience necessary to progress in their careers.
However, with the completion of our financing, two full -time researchers and at least three students will lose their positions. The three main scientists have lost part of their salaries and their time dedicated to research.
These NIH cuts will probably result in the loss of much of the next generation of trans researchers and the contributions they would have made to science and society. Our team and other laboratories, in similar situations, will be less likely to work with postgraduate students due to the lack of funds available to pay and support them.
This changes the panorama for future scientists, since it means that there will be less opportunities for people interested in these research areas to access postgraduate training programs.
As universities struggle to address federal fund cuts, young academics will be less likely to obtain ownership, and teachers with scholarship positions could lose their job.
Universities could also be reluctant to hire people who work in these areas, since their research has been practically excluded from federal financing options.
Loss of community confidence
Trans and non -binary people have often been studied in opportunistic and degrading circumstances. This includes when the researchers collect data for their own benefit, but contribute little to the communities with which they work, or when they carry out research that perpetuates theories that pathologize to these communities.
As a result, many people are usually reluctant to participate in the investigation.
To overcome this reluctance, we base our study on the contributions of the community. We have the participation of an advisory council composed of members of the trans community and non -binary local, who contributed to the elaboration of the study and the measurement of the findings.
Our work on resilience has been inspired by the comments we receive from previous research participants who said that “(trans people) even matter when they do not feel pain.”
The abrupt end of projects such as these can break the trust between researchers and the populations they study.
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Loss of scientific knowledge
The research centered on the strengths of the trans and non -binary communities is in its early stages. The completion of our subsidy has led to the loss of the perspectives that our study would have contributed on how to improve the health of trans and non -binary people, as well as the future work that would have been based on our findings.
Resilience is a process that requires time, and we had not yet finished the longitudinal collection of data from our study, nor will we have the necessary time to publish and share other findings of this work.
Meanwhile, the Department of Health and Human Services published a report in May 2025 that claimed that there were not enough evidence to support gender statement care for young people, which contradicted decades of scientific research.
Scientists, researchers and professional health organizations have widely criticized the report for misrepresenting the findings of studies, dismissing research that demonstrates the benefits of gender statement care and promoting erroneous information rejected by the main medical associations.
On the other hand, the report recommends the “exploratory therapy”, which experts have compared with the discredited conversion therapy.
Despite the statements that there is not enough research on the attention that gender affirms and more data on the health of trans and non -binary people are needed, the government has decided to unintentionally in real scientific research on the lives of trans and non -binary people.
Loss of taxpayers money
The completion of our subsidy implies that we can no longer achieve the objectives of the project, which depended on the collection and analysis of data over time. This wasted the three years of NIH financing already invested in the project.
The scientists and experts who participated in the review of our NIH subsidy proposal described our project with a qualification of 96% of the projects we compete with. Even so, the government made the decision, without scientific foundation, to cancel these decisions and cancel our work.
Millions of dollars of taxpayers have already been invested in these grants to improve health not only of trans and non -binary people, but also of American society as a whole. With the completion of these subsidies, few can see the benefits of this investment.
*Jae A. Puckett He is an associate professor of Psychology at the State University of Michigan; Paz Galupo is a health and sexual education professor at the University of Washington in St. Louis.
This article was originally published in The Conversation
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