The Biden administration has dished out nearly $700,000 to support the creation of a national pregnancy prevention program for transgender boys, federal grant records show.
Health and Human Services (HHS) handed over the funds in September 2023 to the Center for Innovative Public Health Research, a nonprofit that develops health technologies, according to its website. The program will utilize a text-messaging program that was designed for “cisgender sexual minority girls” between the ages of 14-18 to “address social and structural influences of sexual behavior” in transgender boys, according to the grant’s description.
Transgender boys, who are biological females, “may be less likely to use condoms when having sex with people who have penises and are at least as likely as cisgender girls to be pregnant,” a description for the grant shows.
The program will use focus groups to “identify and give voice to the contexts that affect sexual decision making” of transgender boys, according to the grant’s description. They will then use “content advisory teams” to ensure that content “resonates with these youth.”
The program will then test the final version with 700 transgender boys nationwide, according to the grant. Success of the program will be measured by rates of condom protected sex in transgender boys 14-18 and use of other types of birth control.
The Biden administration has handed out millions in funding for other transgender programs and research.
The National Institute of Health (NIH) shelled out over $200,000 in June for an online program to connect LGBTQ youth with LGBTQ adult “mentors.” The program is being created by University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) Professor Katie Edwards to promote “social-emotional skills” in LGBTQ youth.
HHS also gave over $1 million to the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in August 2022 to study the risk of thrombosis, the formation of blood clots in the blood vessels which can lead to death, in transgender adolescents receiving sex change hormonal therapies, federal grant records show.
HHS and the Center for Innovative Public Health Research did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Brandon Poulter on January 11, 2024