GLMA v. National Institutes of Health

Lambda Legal, alongside law firms Crowell & Moring LLP and Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP, filed a federal lawsuit against the National Institutes of Health (NIH) over the termination of hundreds of grants that funded essential research aimed at improving the health of LGBTQI+ people, including critical HIV research. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ+ Equality and 16 individual health researchers whose funding was eliminated or whose grant applications have been unlawfully denied, delayed, or withheld from review. 

The named plaintiffs include Dr. Carl Streed, Jr., Dr. Sean Arayasirikul, Dr. Michelle Birkett, Dr. Gregory Phillips, II, Dr. Kurt Ribisl, Dr. Noel Brewer, Dr. Seth Noar, Dr. Kristen Hassmiller, Dr. Laura Graham Holmes, Dr. Heather Littleton, Dr. Gabriel Murchison, Dr. Sarah Peitzmeier, and Dr. Debra Umberson. Three plaintiffs are filing pseudonymously: Dr. Phoebe Poe, Dr. Rachel Roe, and Dr. Susana Soe. 

Since the new administration took office, NIH, under Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr., has cancelled or substantially reduced 669 grants, of which at least 323 — nearly half of them — addressed the health of sexual and gender minority populations. This includes critical funding for evidence-based studies involving LGBTQI+ people that address topics like mental health, antibiotic resistance, aging, suicide prevention, autism, HIV/AIDS care, gender dysphoria treatment, eating disorders, drug use, intimate partner violence, and countless other areas affecting the health and wellbeing of LGBTQI+ people.