NIH Funds $1.3 Million Study on ‘Teen Pregnancy Prevention’ for ‘Trans-Identified’ Kids

How far has society gone when we’re raising adolescents who don’t recognize the nature of their own biology? 

That’s the crux of a $1.3 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) study for Transcendent Health with more than two years remaining. It aims to “[adapt] an LGB+ inclusive teen pregnancy prevention program for transgender boys – youth who are assigned female at birth (AFAB) and identify as transgender (e.g., as non-binary or as trans boys).”

Is this the type of ideological study tax dollars should be funding?

The study claims that these 14- to 18-year-old biologic girls are “effectively excluded from sexual health programs because gender-diverse youth do not experience the cisgender, heteronormative teen sexual education messaging available to them as salient or applicable.” The study suggests that because these children view themselves as boys, they are naïve to the fact pregnancy is possible. 

No wonder President Trump needed to make clear in one of his first executive orders the definitions of male and female. We’re failing our children when they don’t understand the fundamentals of their own biology and are ignoring the realities of their bodies.

And, we’re failing them further when society speaks to sex being “assigned” at birth as if it were simply changeable. Instead, as is the case with this study, further confusion is imparted by providing teenage respondents with thirteen different choices to describe their gender identity. So much for biology.

Building on the particulars of a youth-focused gender ideology, the grant has two primary aims. The first looks through the lens of “health equity” to adapt Girl2Girl, a “text messaging-based sexual health program designed for cisgender sexual minority girls,” for gender inclusivity. The grant uses focus groups and advisory teams to adjust the program content for “AFAB trans-identified youth.”

The second aim then offers a national randomized control trial testing the resulting adaptation in these teenage girls, with use of birth control and pregnancy as examples of measured outcomes. 

Studies like this are anchored in a gender ideology that entraps our youth into believing an irreality, which will only do them harm spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Building an even more “comprehensive sexual health program,” as the study suggests, will do little to address the true health care needs of these adolescents. Our focus should be on biological truths and providing authentic compassion, love, and care for these children and their families. NIH funding should be put to better use. Let’s save taxpayer dollars for studies that will truly make a difference.