‘This Is Not How We Do Science, Ever’

Government-funded science has, to some extent, always been subject to the political priorities of leadership: The NIH, for instance, is run by a political appointee. Trump and his allies, however, have already demonstrated that they are willing not just to set priorities, but to engage in science theater, with even more broad-reaching interference in the field of trans health. From the start, the new administration’s views on transgender health care have been clear. “This is not how we do science, ever,” one of them, who requested anonymity out of concern for professional retribution, told me. Science is now yet another tool that the government is using to disappear anyone it deems undesirable.