Full Breakdown
GOP Lawmakers Push to Defund Transgender Animal Experiments
4/4/2026, 12:46:26 PM
Legislative Action Against NIH Funding
A coalition of Republican lawmakers, led by Representative Paul Gosar from Arizona, is advocating for the prohibition of federal funding for transgender experiments on animals in the fiscal year 2027 spending bill. This initiative, which includes support from GOP Conference Chair Lisa McClain of Michigan and over a dozen other lawmakers, aims to include explicit language in the appropriations bill that bans funding for research involving "drugs, surgery, or other interventions" intended to alter the human body. The push follows previous efforts to restrict such funding, as similar language was included in the 2026 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill.
Background and Context
The controversy stems from investigations conducted by the medical watchdog group White Coat Waste, which revealed that the National Institutes of Health (NIH), under the direction of former director Dr. Anthony Fauci, allocated millions in grants for experiments aimed at creating transgender mice, rats, and monkeys during the Biden administration. These experiments were designed to mimic the effects of transgender treatments on human subjects. Recently, the NIH awarded an additional $584,117 to the University of California, San Diego, to continue a study examining the effects of cross-sex hormone treatments on mice.
Criticism of Current Research Practices
Critics of the NIH's funding practices, including Justin Goodman, Senior Vice President of White Coat Waste, have condemned the experiments as "horrific taxpayer-funded abuse." Goodman highlighted that nearly 10,000 mice are subjected to invasive surgeries and hormone injections intended to replicate transgender treatments, which he described as barbaric. He emphasized the need for lawmakers to act decisively to prevent taxpayer money from supporting what he termed "woke pseudoscience."
Official Statements & Responses
In response to the criticisms, a spokesperson for the NIH stated that the agency is committed to investing in new methodologies that serve as alternatives to traditional animal testing. The NIH recently announced a $150 million investment aimed at expanding human-based methods that better reflect human biology, including organoids and computational models.
What's Next
The legal landscape surrounding this issue remains complex. A federal judge's ruling in June 2025 restored funding for numerous NIH studies, including those involving transgender mice, but this ruling only applied to that fiscal year's budget. The ongoing efforts by Republican lawmakers to include defunding language in the 2027 spending bill may set the stage for further legislative battles over the role of government funding in transgender-related research.
Verbatim Quotes
“What they’re saying “Tax dollars shouldn't be funding the Biden Administration's sickening transgender animal tests.” — Rep. Paul Gosar
“Even though it didn’t have to, the NIH just doled out another half-million in taxpayer cash for a Biden-era experiment that crudely creates ‘female mice to model transgender men’ by cutting out their ovaries and pumping them with testosterone,” — Justin Goodman, Senior Vice President, White Coat Waste Project
