The United States federal government provides nearly $1 trillion each year in grants. Now, the Trump administration has proposed a new rule to hamstring recipients of this funding - from scientists to non-profits and beyond - by establishing political litmus tests to access these funds. In particular, these tests target funding that will benefit marginalized communities, especially queer and trans people. You can provide a public comment against on the rule before July 13, 2026.
Currently, federal agencies (like NIH, NASA, CDC, HUD, etc.) establish their own guidelines for recipients of federal funding, but the rule from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) would usurp these powers and centralize authority among political appointees in the OMB. Physicist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein calls the proposal “the end of American science as we know it.”
The rule is comprehensive, but I want to highlight some of its most pernicious components:
Presidential appointees would review grants to make sure they align with the president’s priorities. Some explicit examples of topics that are not in alignment: denial of the sex binary in humans (a topic I have written extensively about), outreach to undocumented people, and anything deemed to be DEI (defined as “racial preferences”) or “anti-American values”.
Grants could not fund or encourage transition for people under 19. This is a furtherance of the pseudoscience around childhood transition, another topic I have covered frequently.
Grant applicants could be denied due to their political affiliations. Any person or organization deemed to “undermine public safety.” In practice, this is an extremely broad categorization that could be used to target any individual who the administration disfavors.
Grants could be terminated at any time and for any reason.
Peer review would be overruled by political expediency. In science, peer review allows subject matter experts (rather than government bureaucrats) to assess the quality and feasibility of grant proposals. These assessments could be overlooked in favor of the caprices of presidential appointees.
Bans on international collaborations.
Compliance with Department of Homeland Security’s E-verify system.
In short, the OMB rule is the civic disinvestment in marginalized people, drawing comparisons with Nazi policies that led to the expulsion of Jewish people and political dissidents from public life. Non-profits relying on federal money will be enticed to abandon trans people, undocumented people, and/or communities of color. Scientists will be forbidden from investigating the health of marginalized people. As a trans woman scientist, I fear that this rule may even prevent me from receiving federal research funding, effectively ending my research career1 in US science.
You can provide public comment to express your dissent on the OMB rule here. The comment period closes on July 13. Some tips for effective commenting: share your personal perspective and bring in some data if you can. If not, that’s ok! It is most important to share your perspective.
The proposed OMB rule is an extension of the censorship project initiated by the Trump administration. This has perhaps been clearest at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which hands out over $35 billion each year in grants to research scientists. Here, DOGE implemented wanton grant terminations, and its Trump-appointed director makes regular appearances in right-wing media, including CPAC.
In the face of this censorship regime, NIH staff have compiled a list of “banned words.” After being deemed worthy of funding by peer review, applications are run through a text analysis tool (a legacy of DOGE), and those containing one or more of the banned phrases get flagged. Offending proposals are then reclassified as acceptable, modifiable, or unacceptable - a determination made by bureaucrats. This censorship regime effectively deems some people’s health as unworthy of public investment.
This list of 289 banned phrases was first revealed in a report released by Senator Bernie Sanders, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Labor, Education, and Pensions. A QSL analysis examined the underlying ideologies driving censorship at the NIH. Most terms (145) target general ideals of a pluralistic society grappling with health inequality: “justice”, “diversity”, “health disparities”. This general assault on “DEI” serves as a unified container of backlash, uniting reactionary camps.
Specific bigotries are also boosted by NIH censorship. The second largest group of banned words (77) relate to race and ethnicity, including “racism” and “ethnic minority.” Specific non-white ethnicities are also directly targeted: “African American”, “Latino”, and “Asian American” are all on the list. Of these, anti-Black racism is prioritized. More banned terms are associated with Black Americans (17) than all other communities of color combined (15).
The last major ideology driving NIH censorship is queerphobia, particularly transphobia. Of the 45 queer-associated banned terms, 37 target gender non-conformity. Words like “transgender”, “nonbinary”, and “puberty blocker” are all verboten. Notably, even the trans-exclusive “LGB” is not permitted.
Intersectionality (i.e. how multiple identities intersect in health and wellbeing), climate denial, and vaccine denial were also motivators for some of the banned words.
Pie chart of the most common ideologies motivating censorship at the NIH | graph and analysis by author
Censorship at the NIH serves multiple purposes. The first is to demonize research that the regime dislikes, motivated by a eugenics that views only some people’s health as worthy of investment. According to reporting at Nature, at least two applications were denied funding through this censorship scheme because they dealt with “politically sensitive topics.”
Second, censorship further enriches white, cis/het grantees at the expense of everyone else. In line with this, a recent JAMA analysis identified a downward trend in Black and Hispanic NIH fellowship recipients from 2024 to 2025. Given that federal grant money is critical for career progression, this political interference serves the identitarian retrenchment of the STEM workforce.
One apparent aim of this administration is the dismantling the federal scientific and public health institutions in the United States. Their path of destruction has been calculated to cause maximal damage, particularly targeting work supporting the health and wellbeing of anyone who isn’t a cis straight white man. These acts of targeted disinvestment and demonization are yet another apparent aim of theirs.
In early 2025, Trump officials removed queer-inclusive public health data, suspended federal grants on topics they disapproved of, and declared “transition regret” as a research priority. Now, they are looking to tighten their grip on science by having political appointees decide which grants and which scientists are worthy of federal funding. Tell them NO today.
Provide public comment on the proposed OMB rule here by July 13, 2026.
from the archive
1 I study how the brain and spinal cord develop to give rise to a functional nervous system that allows us to think, feel, and move. I hope the insights from my work can be used in the near-to-medium future to create therapies that help to rebuild the brain after injury.