The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced Tuesday that it has canceled several National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants, including over half a million dollars allocated to a “pregnancy prevention program for transgender boys.” The move is part of a broader effort to cut wasteful government spending.
DOGE, led by tech mogul Elon Musk, revealed the cancellations in a late-night post on X. Among the most controversial grants was a $620,000 program for “an LGB+ inclusive teen pregnancy prevention program for transgender boys,” a term referring to biological females who identify as male.
Other NIH-funded programs that lost funding include:
- $700,000 to study cannabis use among “sexual minority gender diverse individuals.”
- $740,000 to examine “social networks” among “black and Latino sexual minority men in New Jersey.”
- $50,000 to assess “sexual health” among “LGBTQ+ Latinx youth in an agricultural community.”
- $75,000 for research on “structural racism.”
The latest cancellations come just a week after DOGE announced it had eliminated NIH grants funding transgender experiments on animals. According to DOGE, one of the revoked grants included $532,000 for using a mouse model to investigate the effects of cross-sex testosterone treatment.
During President Donald Trump’s recent joint address before Congress, he highlighted multiple instances of questionable government spending uncovered by DOGE, including “$8 million for making mice transgender.” The day after Trump’s speech, DOGE confirmed the NIH had officially revoked funding for these experiments.
The ongoing spending review by DOGE aligns with Trump’s broader agenda to eliminate federal funding for programs viewed as politically driven or unnecessary. Further cuts to NIH and other agencies are expected as the administration continues its push for fiscal accountability.
