Judge Blocks Trump Bid to Defund LGBTQ+ Health Research
On August 1 a U.S. court judge blocked the Trump administration’s effort to eliminate research grant funding essential health research for sexual and gender minorities, which would result in defunding LGBTQ+ health researcher GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ+ Equality, and 16 other individual health researchers. According to CNN, U.S. District Judge Lydia Griggsby, who represents the District of Maryland, states, “It’s clear that why the funding is being terminated and why the grants will not move forward is because they relate to that community,” Griggsby said.
In the same CNN article, Griggsby said she would issue a preliminary injunction against the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s directives to terminate grants for LGBTQ+ health research, stating the measures were designed to “focus and target LGBTQ+ members.”
A PinkNews article states, “the ruling followed two hearings, in GLMA v. NIH—the lawsuit filed by Lambda Legal, as well as Crowell & Moring LLP and Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP on behalf of GLMA.” The filing claimed that the 17 researchers’ “funding was eliminated” or their “grant applications have been unlawfully withheld from review,” according to a press release from Lambda Legal.
“The court saw NIH’s directives prohibiting funding for research specifically related transgender people’s health and the intersectional health needs of LGBTQI+ people as what they are: discriminatory actions that violate our constitution and federal law,” says Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, Senior Counsel and Health Care Strategist at Lambda Legal.
“With today’s ruling granting a preliminary injunction, our plaintiffs can continue with their critical research while our case challenging these harmful actions proceeds. We will continue our fight not to allow this administration to return us to the dark days when our federal government ignored the health needs of LGBTQI+ people.”
NIH, under the direction of Robert Kennedy, Jr., has cancelled or gutted 669 grants. At least 323 of these addressed the health of sexual and gender minority groups, according to Lambda Legal.
