Sponsor
Nancy Mace
Representative · R-SC
Representative · R-SC
The bill reduces federal spending and involvement in research on certain gender-related medical interventions, but does so by shrinking federally supported evidence, harming patient safety and clinical guidance, narrowing protections for gender-diverse people, and shifting research to less transparent funding sources.
Taxpayers could see reduced federal spending because researchers receiving federal funds would be barred from using those dollars for medical interventions the bill defines as gender-related.
The federal government would have fewer obligations to fund and oversee research on these gender-related interventions, potentially reducing administrative and compliance costs tied to those programs.
Limiting federal funding for contentious gender-related medical research may reduce federal exposure to politically divisive litigation or controversy, which some constituents view as a fiscal or governance benefit.
Patients (including transgender youth and adults) and the clinicians and hospitals who treat them would face reduced federally supported evidence on the safety and effectiveness of widely used gender-related hormones and treatments, undermining clinical decisionmaking and national adverse-event monitoring.
People whose lived sex or gender does not match narrow, biology-only definitions (including many transgender and intersex people) could be excluded or invalidated by the bill's definitions, risking restricted access to care and civil-rights harms.
Prohibiting federal funding for this research would likely push studies to private or nonfederal funders, reducing transparency, federal oversight, and the public availability of results, which can bias what gets studied and how findings are shared.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Stops federal funding for research that studies gender-related medical treatments or interventions intended to alter a person’s body or appearance relative to sex.
Official title: To prohibit the use of Federal funds to conduct, support, or fund research that studies the effects of gender-related medical treatment, and for other purposes.
Introduced August 20, 2026 by Nancy Mace · Last progress August 20, 2026
Prohibits the use of any federal funds, directly or indirectly, to conduct, support, or fund research that studies the effects of gender-related medical treatments or any interventions intended to make a person’s body or appearance not correspond with their sex. The bill defines covered research narrowly by naming specific medical procedures, hormones, and puberty-blocking drugs and defines “female,” “male,” and “sex” by reference to reproductive-system function. The measure works by cutting off federal research support for studies of those treatments and interventions; it applies to federal funds in any form and to both conducting research and providing support for that research.