On Friday, President Donald Trump’s National Institute of Health slashed over $1 million in federally funded research evaluating if rats going through hormone therapy were more likely to overdose on a popular party drug.
The DEI-funded National Institute of Health grant was initially exposed in December 2024 by the White Coat Waste Project, a charity that investigates and exposes the abuse of public funds for animal experiments. The organization disclosed that last year, more than $10 million in government funds had been used for research aimed at producing “transgender animals.”
The Trump administration has now cut nine “transgender animal” research grants that the White Coat Waste Project revealed, as Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) reveal and eliminate federal monies that were wasted.
President and founder of White Coat Waste Project, Anthony Bellotti, said, “This is a great victory for taxpayers and animals.” “We’re proud that our blockbuster investigation has prompted the Trump administration to slash millions in DEI funds and other wasteful spending earmarked for creating transgender lab animals through sterilization, hormone therapies, and invasive surgeries and then subjecting them to drug overdoses, open wounds, electroshocks, and other painful and deadly experiments.”
Bellotti added, “Despite the mainstream media’s shameful misinformation campaign, transgender animal experiments are real—and really wasteful.” “The solution is simple: Stop the money. Stop the madness!”
The University of Pacific Stockton received over $1 million for the project “GHB Toxicokinetics: Role of sex hormone-dependent monocarboxylate transporter regulation and potential for altered overdose risk in transgender men and women,” running from April 1, 2020, through March 31, 2025. DOGE slash the program early on March 21.
The grant was funded by the NIH’s Support of Competitive Research (SCORE) Program, which aims to boost research at institutions that have “an explicitly stated mission or historical track records in graduating students from groups nationally underrepresented in biomedical research.”
The White Coat Waste Project’s grant application, which was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), plans to castrate male rats and inject them with estrogen, remove female rats’ ovaries and inject them with testosterone, and then inject the rats with Gamma-Hydroxybutyrate (GHB). GHB is a recreational party drug that is sometimes linked to “chemsex” due to its drowsy and euphoric effects.
The project aims to “characterize GHB toxicokinetics and toxicity in the absence of sex hormones and in response to sex and cross-sex hormone therapy in males and females” in order to ascertain whether hormone replacement could make transgender men and women more susceptible to overdose.
The White Coat Waste Project has collaborated with lawmakers to inform the public and received recognition from the president in the process. Last month, the nonprofit testified before the House Oversight Committee during the hearing, “Transgender Lab Rats and Poisoned Puppies: Oversight of Taxpayer-Funded Animal Cruelty.”
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., stated the latest “transgender animal” research funding cut by the Trump administration while delivering opening remarks on the misuse of taxpayer money funding “gender-affirming care” for animals.
Mace said, “We spent over $1 million to find out if female rats receiving testosterone therapy were more likely to overdose on a date rape drug.” “At our House Oversight Committee hearing last month, we exposed cruel, taxpayer-funded transgender animal experiments.”
She added that “we uncovered how NIH wasted over a million dollars studying whether female rats—after having their ovaries removed and being injected with testosterone to mimic transgender men—were more likely to overdose on a date rape drug. President Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency are now shutting down these appalling and inhumane experiments the Biden administration chose to fund with your hard-earned tax dollars.”
Senate DOGE Caucus Chair Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, applauded the $1 million in federal funding cut for transgender research on animals, acknowledging Trump and DOGE for eliminating this “wacky pseudoscience.”
Ernst said, “Since last year, I’ve exposed how the Biden administration got caught in the woke mousetrap and wasted millions of tax dollars on transgender animal experiments.” “I’m grateful that President Trump and DOGE are eliminating this wacky pseudoscience. Together, we are ending the silly science and ensuring that all studies funded by tax dollars are squeaky clean.”
