There doesn’t appear to be any issue so ridiculous that the federal government wouldn’t approve a six -, seven -, or eight-figure grant to study it—at least, before January 2025. All that’s changing, though, with Donald Trump back in the White House, DOGE in operation, and a new cabinet looking for ways to (and this is a novel idea in government) save the taxpayers a few bucks.
Case in point: Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has just cancelled a $600,000 Department of Agriculture grant to study menstrual cycles in “transgender men.”
🚨CANCELLED: $600,000 grant to study “menstrual cycles in transgender men”
Keep sending us tips. THANK YOU, @approject! The insanity is ending and the restoration of America is underway. 🇺🇸💪❤️ https://t.co/7S53WQ3CP3
— Secretary Brooke Rollins (@SecRollins) March 8, 2025
The academia-watchdog website “The College Fix” has more details:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture granted Southern University Agricultural & Mechanical College in Louisiana $600,000 to study menstrual cycles in “transgender men,” according to a new database compiled by the American Principles Project.
Now, there’s a catch; it appears that the main focus of the study wasn’t on only “transgender men,” but on the use of natural fibers for feminine hygiene products, which would appear to be, very, very broadly agriculture-related, if only in the sense that these fibers are the product of agriculture. But the grant just had to add in a stupid qualifier:
“The first occurrence of menstruation occurs at approximately 12 years of age and ends with menopause at roughly 51 years of age,” the grant description states. “A woman will have a monthly menstrual cycle for about 40 years of her life, averaging to about 450 periods over the course of her lifetime.”
“It is also important to recognize that transgender men and people with masculine gender identities, intersex and non-binary persons may also menstruate,” it states. “At any given moment about 26% of the world’s population is menstruating.”
The study aims to address “growing concerns” related to menstruation, including the potential use of natural fibers like hemp in feminine hygiene products.
OK, first of all, I really didn’t need to know about that 26 percent bit, but I suppose it’s relevant to the grant. However, even if we set aside the woke “transgender, intersex, non-binary” and other horse squeeze from the grant application, is this something the American taxpayers need to be spending over half a million dollars on? There are 36 trillion compelling reasons to say “no.”
Secretary Rollins was right to cancel this nonsense.
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Women should be free to choose whatever hygiene products they like, of course. This is, granted, a topic where half the population – the half that doesn’t and never has had a menstrual cycle – lacks some perspective and, honestly, a sense of the history of these products. However, one can only imagine that for the vast majority of human history, natural fibers were all that were available for this purpose. So, why study them now? If this school, the Southern University Agriculture & Mechanical College, perceives a need for this study, let them find a way to pay for it. Or take it up with the manufacturer of such products to underwrite the study.
There’s no need to drop a big pile of taxpayer cash to study this now; there’s no reason for the Department of Agriculture to be funding it and, in so doing, encouraging more similarly needless spending.
Enough is enough.
