SCOOP: House Republicans request ban on federally funded 'transgender animal' experiments in 2026 budget
FIRST ON FOX: A group of House Republicans are requesting Fiscal Year 2026 spending bills to include language prohibiting federal funding for transgender experiments on animals.
Republican Reps. Paul Gosar, Elijah Crane, Abraham J. Hamadeh of Arizona, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Brandon Gill of Texas, Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Pete Stauber of Minnesota and Troy E. Nehls of Texas are urging the chairman and ranking member of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies to prohibit transgender experiments on animals in its FY2026 appropriations bill.
House Republicans have requested the committee include the following language: "None of the funds made available by this or any other Act thereafter 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 letter, addressed to Chairman Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., and Ranking Member Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., points to the dozens of National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants issued during former President Joe Biden's administration that are funding "wasteful and disturbing experiments to create 'transfeminine' and 'transmasculine' lab animals using invasive surgeries and hormone therapies."
"The transgender animals are then wounded, shocked, injected with street drugs and vaccines, and subjected to other disturbing procedures," the House Republicans said in the letter, as Fox News Digital reported earlier this year.
"President Trump has personally criticized these experiments on several occasions, and the Department of Government Efficiency has canceled millions in NIH grants funding transgender animal testing. However, many of these NIH grants funding gender transitions for lab animals are still active," House GOP members said.
President Donald Trump condemned transgender animal experiments during his joint address to Congress in March. The White Coat Waste Project, a government watchdog group that testified about transgender animal experiments on Capitol Hill earlier this year, told Fox News Digital there are still "29 active taxpayer-funded grants that have been used to fund transgender animal tests."
"We urge you to include the language above in the FY26 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies bill to ensure no more taxpayer dollars are wasted to fund transgender animal tests," the Republicans said in the letter.
The White Coat Waste Project, in a statement to Fox News Digital, touted their role in halting taxpayer-funded "transgender animal tests," and celebrated the House Republicans' bill, led by Gosar, to stop more federally funded experiments.
"Thanks to White Coat Waste's viral investigations and collaboration with Rep. Paul Gosar and others in Congress, the Trump Administration has slashed spending on wasteful experiments that subject lab animals to invasive surgeries and hormone therapies to crudely mimic gender transitions in kids and adults and then wound, shock and inject the animals with vaccines and overdoses of sex party drugs," Justin Goodman, Senior Vice President of White Coat Waste Project, said.
"These Trump cuts have already saved thousands of lab animals and millions of tax dollars, but dozens more NIH grants that funnel tax dollars to disturbing transgender animal tests are still active. Taxpayers shouldn't be forced to foot the bill for wasteful and cruel transgender animal tests, and Rep. Gosar's commonsense effort to permanently defund them will ensure they won't have to."
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A federal indictment accuses Dugan of "falsely" telling federal officials in April that they needed a warrant to come into her courtroom during a scheduled appearance by Flores-Ruiz, an undocumented Mexican national facing three misdemeanor battery charges. Video footage appears to show Flores-Ruiz exiting the courthouse with his attorney, while an ICE agent follows him, and then running alongside the building for about a block before agents capture and arrest him. Federal officials arrested Dugan a week after the courthouse incident. Dugan could face a maximum sentence of six years. She has pleaded not guilty to the charges filed against her. Fox News Digital has reached out to her attorney, Craig Mastantuono, for comment on the footage. In April, Dugan's legal team also filed a motion to dismiss the federal case against her, saying the judge "is entitled to judicial immunity for her official acts." "Immunity is not a defense to the prosecution to be determined later by a jury or court; it is an absolute bar to the prosecution at the outset," the motion said.
