Amber Mapel

Strength in Community: How One Researcher United LGBTQ+ Scientists After Her Grant Was Canceled

By: Amber Mapel

On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order (EO) 14168 titled

“Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the

Federal Government.” Eleven days later, Dr. Mandi Pratt-Chapman was notified her grant had

been terminated.

By 5 p.m. on January 31, her study on how rural cancer centers collect sexual orientation and

gender identity (SOGI) data was shut down.

“There was an intentional targeting of higher education and science– and to an extent it worked,”

she said. “There was an intention to be overwhelming and a lot of us were very overwhelmed.”

Her grant was one of many canceled following the implementation of President Trump’s

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), primarily focused on reducing federal spending.

On the DOGE website, it states that 15,887 grants from various government agencies have been

terminated, saving approximately $49 billion.

Pratt-Chapman’s funding was flagged because EO 14168 states that “federal funds shall not be

used to promote gender ideology.” It enforces a strictly binary understanding of sex and gender

which is part of larger anti-transgender rhetoric from the Trump Administration.

Pratt-Chapman described her grant as relatively small, but its cancellation raised big questions on

the future of LGBTQ+ research and federally funded science. She said the data lost will have

lasting effects after Trump’s term.

Grant cancellations are just one part of the administration’s greater agenda against the education

bureaucracy they say is failing. In another unprecedented EO last year, Trump dismantled the

Department of Education, saying its closure “would drastically improve program implementation

in higher education.”

Pratt-Chapman is the Associate Director of Scientific Communication & Dissemination at The

George Washington University (GW) Cancer Center. She is also a professor in the Department of

Medicine and Department of Prevention & Community Health. In 2020, she earned a doctorate

in translational health studies from GW.

Her terminated grant was for the study “Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Data Collection

in Community Oncology Practice.” Pratt-Chapman and her colleagues were following up on

their study of how SOGI data of cancer patients is collected in urban and more populated areas.

They had already gathered more than one-third of the federally funded data, and planned to

interview 16 additional rural cancer centers when they lost funding.

“I felt personally in a crisis,” she said. “So I organized a space for others experiencing this to be

heard and validated.”

She began a monthly meeting for the sexual and gender minority interest group that was

previously hosted by the National Cancer Institute. When the meeting series ended,

Pratt-Chapman took over as a touchpoint for researchers to continue building community.

“I still have a monthly call for scientists in the LGBT community that want to talk about research

or vent,” Pratt-Chapman said. “I still hold that hour every month just in case someone wants to

call in.”

In an interview, Dr. Lauren Houghton, an epidemiologist, researcher at Columbia University, and

colleague of Pratt-Chapman described her as a leader in the sexual and gender minority cancer

community.

“She immediately offered sessions and places for us as researchers going through a trauma to

connect,” Houghton said.

In addition to the monthly meetings, Pratt-Chapman surveyed 158 researchers and interviewed

22 on their experiences with grant terminations, financial instability and job changes. She

anticipates the analysis being submitted to a journal by the end of March.

“The way I look at all of my research is trying to remedy an injustice,” she said. “It was the same

skillset, just applied to my peers.”

On February 7th, 2025, Pratt-Chapman shared her experience in Science Magazine– an action

many other researchers were hesitant to do. She says she was shocked by the level of

intimidation people felt and hoped that speaking out would lead to justice.

Houghton described Pratt-Chapman’s willingness to speak with the media as inspiring.

“She was one of the first people to do it,” Houghton said. “I think it was important to have that

voice out there and not be afraid. She was so brave.”

Pratt-Chapman said it felt like the natural thing to do. Being a point of connection not only

helped strengthen her professional community, but document the shared experiences of

researchers.

“If you don’t state truth, then you are at risk of losing it,” she said. “And if you don’t stand up for

the values that you believe in, then you lose them too.