5 revelations from 'Federal Fumbles' report: From trans animal experiments to Minnesota fraud schemes

By Samantha Kamman, Christian Post Reporter Wednesday, February 18, 2026

1. $240M for NIH-funded transgender animal experiments 

Lankford’s report highlighted several grant funding programs from the National Institutes of Health that were carried over from the Biden administration, including roughly $240 million earmarked for transgender animal experiments involving mice, rats, and monkeys.

"These NIH-funded studies attempted to model transgender adults and children by subjecting animals to hormone regimens and surgical procedures," the Federal Fumbles report stated. “Many of these animals were subsequently infected with viruses, injected with cancer cells, or exposed to painful shocks to measure physiological and psychological responses.” 

The issue of transgender animal experiments came up during a February 2025 congressional subcommittee hearing titled "Transgender Lab Rats and Poisoned Puppies: Oversight of Taxpayer Funded Animal Cruelty."

Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., said at the hearing last year that the Biden administration allocated $2.5 million to study the fertility of transgender mice, while another experiment spent $1.1 million to explore the impact of testosterone therapy on female rats, mimicking transgender men, and their likelihood to overdose on a party drug commonly used in the LGBT community for "chemsex."

Additionally, Mace said tax dollars funded a study to transition male monkeys by forcing them to undergo hormone treatments to see if it made them more susceptible to HIV.

"The Biden-Harris administration was so eager to propagate their radical gender ideology across all facets of American society that they did not pause to consider that such experiments are not only cruel, but unnecessary," Mace said.

An investigation from the White Coat Waste Project, a nonprofit government watchdog, also linked several Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) grants to painful procedures and hormone treatments for lab animals across the country.

Justin Goodman from the White Coat Waste Project said during the hearing that his organization had identified "over $240 million in NIH grants for transgender animal experiments, including $26 million in active funding."