Trump's Trials - White House orders NIH to research trans 'regret' and 'detransition'

Episode Date: April 11, 2025

The Trump administration has ordered the National Institutes of Health to study the physical and mental health effects of undergoing gender transition, including regret. The research comes at a time when the administration has cut hundreds of grants for research into health issues affecting the LGBTQ community. Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

I'm Scott Detro and you're listening to Trump's terms from NPR. We're going to be doing all sorts of things nobody ever thought was even possible. It's going to be a very aggressive first hundred days of the new Congress. An unpredictable, transformative next four years. The United States is going to take off like a rocket ship. Each episode we bring you NPR's coverage of President Trump acting on his own terms. And that means sometimes doing things that no American president has tried before. NPR is covering it all in stories

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Imagine if you will a show from NPR that's not like NPR, a show that focuses not on the important but the stupid, which features stories about people smuggling animals in their pants and competent criminals in ridiculous science studies and call it Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me because the good names were taken. Listen to NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Yes, that is what it is called wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Steve Inscape. The Trump administration has ordered the National Institutes of Health

to study the physical and mental health effects of undergoing gender transition. NPR health correspondent Rob Stein obtained an internal memo detailing that research plan. According to the directive, the NIH plans to study the impact of quote social transition and or chemical and surgical mutilation on quote among children who transition. Specifically the White House wants the

NIH to study regret and de-transition among children and adults who have transitioned. The plan is setting off alarm bells among many researchers and in the LGBTQ community. What they're looking for is a political answer, not a scientific one. Adrian Schenker was the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health Policy at the Department of Health and Human Services under President Biden. That should be an alarm for everyone who cares about the scientific integrity of national

institutes for health. Among the red flags in the directive, Schenker and others say, is the language. Harry Barbee is an assistant professor in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Chemical or surgical mutilation, you know, these are deeply offensive terms, and especially when referring to evidence-based medical interventions like puberty blockers, hormone therapy, or gender-affirming surgeries. This terminology has no place in serious scientific or public health discourse.

The language has been historically used to stigmatize trans people. Even the phrase regret and detransition can be weaponized. Many researchers say there is already a solid body of evidence that the level of regret after transition is very low. Lindsay Dawson directs LGBTQ health policy at KFF, a nonpartisan health research group. Regret rates for gender-affirming care are about less than 1%, which is much lower than regret rates for procedures that we see as quite common and that are widely accepted. Like hip replacements, obesity surgeries, and even

tattoos. Dawson and others say they're not surprised by the directive given the rhetoric Trump used during the campaign about trans people and other steps the administration has taken since coming into office, like the slashing of funding for hundreds of studies about important physical and mental health issues people in the LGBTQ community face. Brittany Charlton studies the LGBTQ community at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. She's been tracking these cancellations nationwide. This is especially concerning given the recent defunding of probably hundreds of NIH-supported studies that focused on trans health. Having the NIH shift their focus, that really impedes our ability to

actually understand the full picture. Neither the NIH nor the Health and Human Services Department responded to NPR's requests for comment. But others argue that previous research on trans regret was poorly done and is outdated. Evgenia Abruzzese is the co-founder of the group Evidence-Based Gender Medicine. We are starting to see much greater numbers of young people who are saying that they went on the wrong path for them and they're now left with irreversible changes to their body and they no longer identify as transgender but they are left with these permanent effects. There are a lot of negative impacts of transition and regret is definitely one of them.

It's a very important area of medicine to study. The directive says that, quote, this is very important to the President and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and they would like the NIH to move as quickly as possible. Rob Stein, NPR News. Before we wrap up, a reminder, you can find more coverage of the incoming Trump administration on the NPR Politics Podcast, where you can hear NPR's political reporters break down

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