WINNING: House Appropriations Committee Unanimously Passes Amendment to Defund All NIH-Funded Transgender Animal Experiments in FY26 Spending Bill
In a significant victory for fiscal conservatives and animal welfare advocates, the House Appropriations Committee has unanimously passed an amendment to the FY26 NIH spending bill that would prohibit the use of taxpayer dollars for bizarre and controversial “transgender” experiments on animals.
The amendment, which was added to the spending bill, states explicitly:
“Sec. ___. None of the funds made available by this Act may be used for research on vertebrate animals for the purpose of studying the effects of drugs, surgery, or other interventions to alter the human body (including by disrupting the body’s development, inhibiting its natural functions, or modifying its appearance) to no longer correspond to its biological sex.”
The amendment was first proposed by Rep. Paul Gosar in May, who was working with White Coat Waste Project, a watchdog group focused on ending wasteful taxpayer-funded animal experimentation.
The full FY26 NIH spending bill advanced out of committee and now heads to the full House for a vote. If approved by Congress and signed into law, this provision would permanently bar NIH-funded labs from using tax dollars on such experiments, ensuring no repeat of the disturbing practices uncovered earlier this year.
Last month, White Coat Waste, a taxpayer watchdog dedicated to ending cruel animal testing, exposed how NIH grants totaling over $22 million were used to fund transgender experiments at institutions like Boston Children’s Hospital and the University of Florida.
In those studies, young male rhesus macaques were dosed with estrogen to simulate “feminizing hormone therapy” for transgender individuals, leading to physical changes such as enlarged nipples and vascularized skin on their hips and thighs. The monkeys were then injected with mRNA-based vaccines, disrupting their immune systems, and one animal—identified as rh-12—was euthanized after developing severe scrotal edema.
The experiments were tied to grants issued under Dr. Anthony Fauci in 2020, with funding continuing into recent years despite growing backlash. In response to the exposé, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. confirmed that the specific transgender monkey grant was terminated in 2022 and stated that HHS is “working ferociously to end all non-human primate studies except in cases that are vital to saving human life, and for which no other option exists.”
However, other related grants remained active, prompting Republican lawmakers, such as Reps. Nancy Mace, Lauren Boebert, and others to push for broader defunding through legislation such as the TRANS MICE Act.
Anthony Bellotti, the president and founder of White Coat Waste, celebrated the amendment in a statement provided to the Gateway Pundit:
“We’re proud that White Coat Waste’s viral investigations, shocking Congressional testimony, and relentless campaigning exposing nightmarish taxpayer-funded transgender animal experiments have prompted policymakers—and President Trump himself—to cut this wasteful spending. Our investigation uncovered labs that spent tens of millions subjecting monkeys, mice and other animals to invasive surgeries and hormone therapies to crudely mimic transgender adults and kids—only to later wound, shock, and inject them with viruses, vaccines, and overdoses of sex-party drugs. Trump’s historic cuts to NIH’s transgender animal experiments uncovered by White Coat Waste have already saved thousands of animals and millions of tax dollars. We’re now working with Congress to ensure taxpayers are never forced to fill the bill for these terrible tests again. The solution is simple: Stop the money. Stop the madness.”
Rep. Gosar echoed the sentiments, telling TGP, “Millions in tax funding for transgender animal experiments is Exhibit A in government waste. I’m proud to have worked on this effort with White Coat Waste and the Appropriations Committee to defund the NIH’s woke animal testing.”
WCW has spearheaded numerous campaigns exposing and defunding cruel government-backed tests, saving millions in public funds and sparing thousands of animals.
Founded to combat the over $20 billion annually spent on such experiments, WCW has achieved major victories, including exposing and defunding the Wuhan lab linked to COVID-19 origins, halting Dr. Anthony Fauci’s infamous beagle experiments that involved infecting and killing thousands of dogs in painful toxicity tests, and shutting down the USDA’s “Kitten Slaughterhouse,” the government’s largest cat lab where felines were bred, infected with parasites, and euthanized.
The organization also ended cat and dog experiments at the Department of Veterans Affairs, closed the FDA’s largest primate lab, resulting in a 63 percent reduction in primate testing, and secured a permanent ban on all Navy-funded dog and cat experiments, terminating a $10 million program of invasive procedures.
Additionally, WCW’s investigations led to the NIH closing its in-house beagle laboratories after revelations of brutal experiments pumping bacteria into dogs’ lungs and inducing septic shock, marking the end of over 40 years of such practices.
Through relentless advocacy, WCW has influenced groundbreaking legislation and policies, such as the first-ever federal rules allowing lab survivors to be retired and adopted as pets across various agencies, including the NIH, VA, DOD, and FDA, as well as the passage of the first state law banning taxpayer-funded maximum-pain tests on dogs and cats.
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