In a decisive and courageous move, the Trump administration has directed the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to launch comprehensive research into the psychological and physical consequences of gender transition procedures on minors. The directive marks a significant shift toward restoring truth, medical ethics, and scientific integrity—values that were increasingly abandoned under the previous far-left agenda that prioritized ideology over biology.
Matthew Memoli, then-Acting Director of the NIH, communicated the order internally, confirming that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), under the leadership of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has prioritized research into what the administration rightfully terms “chemical and surgical mutilation”—a stark but accurate descriptor of irreversible procedures being pushed on vulnerable children. According to a memo obtained by Nature, this mandate includes two critical areas of focus: (1) regret and detransition following gender “affirmation” interventions, and (2) the long-term outcomes for children who have been subjected to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries.
“This is very important to the President and the Secretary,” the memo states, highlighting President Trump’s deep commitment to confronting what he has called one of the greatest medical scandals in American history.
Trump’s directive comes as the transgender medical industry continues to expand into a billion-dollar sector, with pharmaceutical giants, hospital systems, and activist physicians profiting off the suffering and confusion of children. The industry has faced increasing scrutiny for pushing experimental and often irreversible treatments on minors—treatments that were virtually unheard of just a decade ago but are now aggressively marketed through schools, media, and even taxpayer-funded healthcare programs.
Under Trump’s leadership, over 270 taxpayer-funded grants worth at least $125 million aimed at promoting LGBTQ+ ideology—many involving children—were cancelled. These grants had funded studies that many critics believe were thinly veiled efforts to normalize radical gender ideology, rather than to uphold objective science.
Despite predictable outrage from left-wing activists and progressive academics, the Trump administration is standing firm. Critics such as Adrian Shanker, a Biden-era official, have accused the administration of “politicizing science.” Yet for years, it was the left that weaponized scientific institutions—using the NIH, CDC, and other agencies as tools to advance political narratives, not to protect public health.
The Trump White House is simply correcting course.
For example, the administration’s directive to investigate detransition—where individuals reverse or regret their gender transition—is based on growing evidence that many patients were rushed into life-altering treatments without proper psychological evaluation or informed consent. Several whistleblower clinicians from prominent gender clinics have come forward in recent years, confirming that minors were fast-tracked into medical transition after just a few short consultations.
Researcher Michael Biggs, a sociology professor at Oxford University, supports Trump’s call for deeper investigation, calling detransition an “understudied” field. He is one of many scholars who have pointed out that most existing pro-transition studies lack control groups, peer review, and long-term follow-up—the gold standards of rigorous medical science.
The Trump administration’s actions are rooted in a fundamental belief: children deserve protection, not propaganda. Medical transition procedures include puberty blockers like Lupron (originally designed to chemically castrate sex offenders), cross-sex hormones with lifelong consequences, and irreversible surgeries like double mastectomies and genital reconstruction. These procedures come with severe risks—bone density loss, sterilization, heart problems, and psychological trauma.
Even left-leaning European nations are beginning to rethink their positions. The UK, Sweden, Finland, and Norway have all rolled back access to gender medical interventions for minors, citing lack of evidence and rising concern over irreversible harm. Ironically, while Europe backs away, U.S. progressives have doubled down—until now.
President Trump has made it clear: he will end this medical abuse in America. He previously signed an executive order affirming only two sexes—male and female—based on biological reality, not ideological fantasy. He declared that public institutions must reject the notion of gender identity as fluid and subjective, describing it as “a dangerous and incoherent ideology” designed to undermine family values, confuse children, and erode national unity.
Activists like Harry Barbee, a non-binary professor at Johns Hopkins, are outraged by the Trump administration’s decision. Barbee called the terminology used in the memo “stigmatizing.” But what he and other critics fail to acknowledge is that truth is not hate, and protecting children from experimental drugs and disfigurement is not “stigma”—it’s compassion.
The left wants to shut down any research that questions their narrative, even if it means silencing those who have been harmed by these treatments. Detransitioners—young men and women who regret undergoing gender procedures—are routinely de-platformed, mocked, or ignored by the media and academic institutions that once celebrated their “transition.”
President Trump has pledged that, upon returning to office, he will sign sweeping federal bans on gender procedures for minors, defund hospitals engaging in child transitions, and launch a Justice Department investigation into medical institutions that violated children’s rights. “No child should be permanently sterilized or mutilated in the name of woke ideology,” Trump said at a rally in 2024. “We will restore sanity. We will protect children. We will punish the predators who allowed this to happen.”
As the Trump administration forces the NIH and HHS to confront this dark chapter in American medicine, many parents, doctors, and former patients are cheering. For the first time in years, real science—not political theater—is making a comeback.
The Biden administration and the radical left tried to suppress this debate. They tried to silence whistleblowers. But Trump, as always, is unafraid to take on the establishment—and defend the most vulnerable among us.
