On September 30, 2026, NPR reported that a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report linking support for gender-affirming care to political violence had been released without peer review. Its underlying data and funding weren’t available at the time. The report places a contested claim within a federal agency’s public health work: support for gender-affirming care connects to “Left-Wing Authoritarianism” and willingness to justify political violence.
Researchers including Colin Wright, an evolutionary biologist with the Manhattan Institute, wrote the report, titled “Where the Clinic Meets the Movement: Does Gender Ideology Arm Left-Wing Authoritarian Psychology?” Wright said the data would be released “soon” and the paper would eventually be submitted to a scientific journal. “The fact that our report has not yet undergone peer review at a journal does not make it pseudoscience,” he said.
The report and its evidence
The researchers said they surveyed around 1,200 adults through a paid online platform. They asked about gender-affirming medical care, government censorship and aspects of capitalism. Participants also answered whether violence was justified against Charlie Kirk, President Donald Trump and Brian Thompson. The report says gender ideology “may function as an ideological accelerant.” Wright said “‘May’ is doing important work in that sentence.”
The report uses “gender ideology” interchangeably with “gender-affirming care,” which the article describes as the accepted medical and mental health standard of care for transgender patients. Wright has called support for gender-affirming care “an extremist political movement disguised as a medical guideline.” He said he doesn’t consider “gender ideology” a political term, but a description of belief systems involved in debates about transgender issues.
Alexander Tsai, a psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School, said the report’s “ideological accelerant” conclusion isn’t supported by the data presented. Liliana Mason, a political psychologist at Johns Hopkins University, said she’d recommend rejecting the paper. She cited measures she said weren’t well validated and a lack of good faith.
Mason also said the survey sample overrepresented Democrats compared with U.S. political demographics. The report, she said, left out context from her research showing approval of political violence on both sides among people with the strongest partisan identities. Wright called that “relevant background,” but said the study wasn’t intended to argue that violence is uniquely left-wing or that right-wing violence is unimportant.
HHS policy and institutional ties
The report is part of a series of HHS efforts concerning gender-affirming care. In August 2026, the Trump administration announced it would end Medicaid and CHIP funding for gender-affirming care for youth, drawing on an HHS review that characterized evidence supporting the care models as “very low-quality.” Doctors and pediatricians disputed that characterization. A recent study found that less than 0.1% of American minors with private insurance receive puberty-blocking medication or gender-affirming hormones.
Weeks before the report’s release, HHS issued “Wolves in White Coats.” It accused doctors and hospitals of pressuring youth into gender-affirming surgeries and using fraudulent billing practices. Vice President Vance cited that report when asking the Justice Department to investigate dozens of hospitals. Career HHS staff told NPR they hadn’t known about the gender-ideology research before its public release. One health official said, “We're supposed to be the department that people look to for actual facts — these are lies.”
The report lists Wright’s Manhattan Institute association, but not his affiliations with the Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine and Genspect’s Killarney Group think tank. NPR described both organizations as opposing gender-affirming care. Wright said listing those affiliations as current would be misleading. HHS didn’t respond to NPR’s interview request, and other report authors declined interviews.
Critics and the wider dispute
Andrew Ortiz, an attorney with the Transgender Law Center, said the administration had issued anti-trans executive orders and directed agencies to implement them. Calls to the center’s help desk surged after Trump took office in 2025, he said, with many callers asking about leaving the United States.
The Southern Poverty Law Center report alleges that organizations opposing gender-affirming care form a shifting network that uses the appearance of science to legitimize anti-LGBTQ aims. SEGM rejected that description, saying it supports evidence-based medicine and opposes harassment and discrimination. Genspect called the SPLC’s hate-group designation “a baseless accusation.”
Emerson Hodges, a co-author of the SPLC report, said HHS appears to be the agency where these groups now have the most influence. Wright said on X that the report is “only the first” in a series he is working on with the research team. The dispute concerns not only the report’s methods, but which researchers and standards will shape HHS policy.