In the latest violation of President Trump’s order banning federal funding to promote gender ideology, the government is giving a nonbinary graduate student dedicated to studying “transmasculine individuals who give birth” thousands of dollars to research “gender minority birthing people.” The money is being disbursed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the nation’s medical research agency charged with making important discoveries that improve health and save lives. Every year the NIH, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), awards tens of billions of dollars in grants and contracts to thousands of universities and research institutions across the United States. The stated goal is to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability.
It is difficult to see how that applies to this particular grant, which is funding an absurd initiative at the University of Maryland, College Park, one of the nation’s top ranked public universities. A doctoral student in the school’s Family Science department will use the $35,832 NIH grant to analyze the risk and protective factors influencing psychological distress in what the document describes as sexual and gender minority birthing people. “Sexual and gender minority (SGM) individuals, including lesbian, bisexual, and queer women as well as transgender and gender nonconforming individuals, face increasing social stigma, animosity, and conflicts,” according to the NIH grant document. “Preliminary data suggests that these negative societal factors contribute to significant disparities in mental health outcomes among SGM birthing people.” Access to quality healthcare and social support are crucial for reducing the risk of pregnancy-related complications, the announcement further states, as well as mitigating adverse mental health effects.
The problem is, according to the nation’s medical research agency, that SGM individuals often encounter “unaffirming and inappropriate care,” leading to elevated stress levels, non-compliance, and delays in seeking essential healthcare services. Adding to the issue is that the nature of support needed by SGM individuals often differs from that required by heterosexual and cisgender women. “Therefore, there is a pressing need for a deeper examination of SGM birthing people’s experiences with medical care and social support to inform culturally sensitive interventions tailored specifically for SGM people, alongside comprehensive training for healthcare providers to deliver appropriate care,” the NIH writes in the grant document. Pond Ezra, the grant recipient described by the government as Mx., a gender-neutral title of courtesy, will elucidate how social support and specialized medical care contribute to the mental health trajectories of SGM birthing people throughout the perinatal period. Ezra will emerge as an “expert on SGM reproductive health equity,” according to the NIH. The agency uses the gender neutral pronoun “they” when referring to the doctoral student, who appears to be a biological woman in the biography published by the University of Maryland, College Park School of Public Health.
Ezra specializes in researching gender minorities in families with a specific focus on the experiences of “Seahorse dads,” a term created by the left to describe biological women who identify as men and are therefore known as “transmasculine individuals who give birth.” The graduate student who just received thousands of taxpayer dollars plans to explore how transgender parents, specifically “seahorse dads,” navigate parenting roles after birth, according to the college biography. This includes in what contexts does gender dysphoria show up in transmasculine parenthood and what socialization messages are transgender parents sending to their children about gender. Last fall Ezra and a fellow researcher published an academic paper on so-called “seahorse dads” that concludes they resist being labeled as mothers. The paper claims to account for the experiences of transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) people who become parents. “Drawing from queer, gender, and life course perspectives, we introduce theoretical expansions that center the reciprocal, time-sensitive relationship between gender expression and parenthood,” the published academic paper states, adding that it explores how seahorse dads disrupt “cisnormative assumptions,” and reshape family relationships.
