NIH internally flags and blocks "gender identity" research; award and review pipeline frozen for trans-health science

Following EO 14168, acting NIH director Memoli signed off on internal guidance listing "research activities that NIH no longer supports"; institutes were ordered to review new and ongoing awards for "DEI research activities or DEI language" and gender-identity content, sorting projects into categories from automatically rejected to unrelated. Staff were directed to flag applications and awards touching "gender identity," and NIH stopped issuing new awards in the field, delaying or withdrawing funding opportunities and paused applications — the mechanism that generated the termination waves below and the 5,000+ paused applications later subject to court-ordered re-review. (See also sections 2, 12.)