EPPC Scholar Responds to Expansive NIH “Sexual and Gender Minority Health” Research Agenda


Published July 15, 2024

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On July 15, 2024, EPPC policy analyst Natalie Dodson submitted a response to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Request for Information (RFI) on NIH-Wide Strategic Plan for Sexual and Gender Minority (SGM) Health Research (FY26-30).

In past reviews of its Strategic Plan’s progress, the NIH’s Sexual and Gender Minority Research Office (SGMRO), established in 2015, has stated its aim to “expand research on gender-affirming care for transgender and gender-diverse populations” and revealed partnerships with publications that promote “successful gender affirmative care.”

In response to the RFI, Dodson writes, these institutional priorities appear to:

“rubberstamp[] an ideological agenda that markedly ignores the latest research, especially the “Cass Review,” a comprehensive and reputable report discrediting the weak evidence “on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress” and “ignore conflicting research from the UK, Sweden, Finland, and Florida that determined there is no evidence that the benefits of hormones for treating gender-related distress in youth outweigh the risks. While the research opposing “gender-affirming care” for minors is based on systematic and evidence-based reviews, the research cited in the publications on the NIH SGMO website is ideologically driven and is not supported by the best medical evidence, as the Cass Review makes clear.”

Instead, Dodson asserts:

“The NIH SGMO should prioritize studies and research with rigorous analysis and data that seek to identify the long-term outcomes of gender transition treatments on minors who have already undergone social and medical transitions, including how they affect future health and fertility. NIH SGMO should also conduct research on detransitioners, including the mental and physical distress resulting from their transitions.”

A complete version of Dodson’s responses to the NIH’s Request for Information can be found here.


Natalie Dodson is a Policy Analyst at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where she works on a range of initiatives focusing on sexuality, gender ideology, religious liberty, health care rights of conscience, abortion, and nondiscrimination in EPPC’s HHS Accountability Project.

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