A U.S. district court judge on Friday, Aug. 1, blocked the National Institutes of Health from terminating hundreds of research grants that funded research addressing the health of sexual and gender minorities, including critical HIV research.
The court ruling followed the hearing in GLMA v. NIH, a lawsuit filed by Lambda Legal on behalf of GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ+ Equality and 16 individual health researchers whose funding was eliminated or whose grant applications have been unlawfully withheld from review.
“Today, 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,” said 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 announced the termination of research grants, which are worth more than $800 million but are estimated to equal less than one percent of the total NIH portfolio, as a direct result of the executive orders issued by President Trump that target equity-related grants and forbid federally-funded entities from engaging in diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility programs, and from recognizing the existence of transgender people.
Since the new administration took office, NIH, under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr., has cancelled or substantially reduced 669 grants, of which at least 323 — nearly half of them — addressed the health of sexual and gender minority groups.
For more information about Lambda Legal’s fight for the LGBTQ+ community under the Trump administration, visit Lambda Legal’s Trump Tracker.
— David Taffet