While campaigning, President Donald Trump pledged to address the “gender ideology” targeting children in the U.S. Now that he’s back in the White House, he is seemingly making good on that promise. According to several reports, the president and his Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have directed the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to conduct research on the long-term effects of gender transition procedures, especially on children.

The scientific journal Nature reported that acting NIH Director Mark Memoli has issued a memo directing the agency to fund research concerning “regret and detransition following social transition as well as chemical and surgical mutilation of children and adults” and “outcomes from children who have undergone social transition and/or chemical and surgical mutilation.”

“This is very important to the President and the Secretary,” Memoli said in the memo, according to NPR. He continued, “They would like us to have funding announcements within the next six months to get this moving.”

In comments to The Washington Stand, Dr. Jennifer Bauwens, director of the Center for Family Studies at Family Research Council, said, “This is such a welcome change from the previous administration and its use of taxpayer dollars for research funding.” She noted that research surrounding gender transition procedures and their impact have long been dominated by “leftists,” and urged that the Trump administration ensure the researchers it funds now are unbiased.

Bauwens explained, “My profession needs to experience an institutional overhaul because so many researchers are beholden to gender ideology. I’m sure the administration has thought of that, but my one concern is who the researchers are that this grant money will go to.” She added that leftist researchers “don’t want research being done that will affect their pet project. That’s not science.”

Bauwens also observed that transgenderism advocates involved in research on this subject often accuse other researchers of political bias, while biasing their own research politically. “It’s interesting how these researchers are discussing political motivations, but they’ve made no real attempt to research the impact that gender transitions have, especially on children,” she said. She continued, “They don’t ask, ‘What if we uncover that this is actually harming more people than it claims to help?’” Bauwens added, “Science is political. There’s no way to avoid it, only a way to manage it.” She emphasized that “we need an unbiased body of research on this subject. We need to understand this.”

In his first week back in office, Trump signed an executive on “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” taking aim at the practice of gender transition procedures on children. “Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions,” the president wrote, adding that the “dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end.”

“Countless children soon regret that they have been mutilated and begin to grasp the horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to conceive children of their own or nurture their children through breastfeeding,” the president stated, referring specifically to post-gender transition regret. He continued, “Moreover, these vulnerable youths’ medical bills may rise throughout their lifetimes, as they are often trapped with lifelong medical complications, a losing war with their own bodies, and, tragically, sterilization.”

Numerous studies have confirmed the dangers posed and damage done by gender transition procedures, including an increased risk of suicide, links to cancer, significantly worsened mental health, “irreversible infertility,” and an increased sense of loneliness and depression, among other issues. Studies have also concluded that gender transition procedures do not mitigate the risk of suicidal ideation, fail to address psychological issues underlying gender dysphoria, and actually increase the prevalence of issues such as anxiety and substance abuse. Additionally, the vast majority of youth who identify as transgender or struggle with gender dysphoria will, according to an in-depth study, “grow out of” their gender identity crisis within typically a five-year span.