GLMA v. National Institutes of Health
Lambda Legal, Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP, and Crowell & Moring LLP filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland against the National Institutes of Health (NIH) over the termination of hundreds of NIH grants funding essential research on LGBTQI+ health, 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 were unlawfully withheld from review.
Since the new administration took office, NIH—under Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr.—cancelled or substantially reduced over 669 grants, at least 323 of which addressed the health of sexual and gender minority populations. These cuts gut evidence-based research on HIV/AIDS care, mental health, suicide prevention, aging, gender dysphoria treatment, eating disorders, intimate partner violence, and many other areas essential to LGBTQI+ people’s lives. Researchers have seen their careers upended, clinical trials cut short, and study participants left without promised care or compensation.
The terminations stem directly from Trump executive orders targeting equity-related grants and forbidding federally-funded entities from recognizing the existence of transgender people. Lambda Legal argues, among other claims, that the terminations violate the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection clause by discriminating against LGBTQI+ people on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity, and that NIH’s actions violate Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in federally-funded health programs.
Lambda Legal asks the court to declare the directives unlawful and unconstitutional, permanently stop NIH from conditioning research funding on whether it relates to LGBTQI+ health, and reinstate terminated grants. In August 2025, the court granted a preliminary injunction, temporarily blocking NIH from terminating or withholding funding for LGBTQI+ health research and reinstating previously terminated grants while the case proceeds.
- May 20, 2025: Lambda Legal, Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP, and Crowell & Moring LLP file a federal lawsuit on behalf of GLMA and 16 health researchers, challenging NIH’s policy prohibiting funding and requiring the mass termination of LGBTQI+ health research grants as unlawful discrimination, among other claims.
- May 28, 2025: Lambda Legal files a motion for a preliminary injunction, asking the court to immediately stop NIH from terminating funding for LGBTQI+ health-related research and requiring the restorations of already terminated critical research funding while the case proceeds.
- June 13, 2025: NIH files its opposition, arguing the terminations should stand.
- July 1, 2025: Court holds first hearing on plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction and orders supplemental briefing on Plaintiffs’ discrimination claims.
- August 1, 2025: The court holds a second hearing on Plaintiffs’ motion and grants the preliminary injunction in part. NIH is blocked from ending federal funding for LGBTQI+ health research, and that previously terminated grants be reinstated, while the case continues.
- August 14, 2025: The court issues its written opinion, finding that researchers are likely to succeed in proving that NIH’s actions discriminated against LGBTQI+ health researchers in violation of the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection guarantee and Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act.
- January 9, 2026: NIH files its answer to the complaint, and the case moves forward.