Nike defunds study of medicalized "trans" kids

Trans-identified male activist researcher Joanna Harper says it was a result of hate

Good news! Dr. Kathryn Ackerman’s study of the effect of early medicalization of children with trans identities on sports performance has been dealt its coup de grace. That news came, not from Ackerman, or Nike, but in the course of a florid historical fiction piece in Outsports on trans-identified male activist researcher Joanna Harper:

“Nike was prepared to fund a study on transgender youth in sports, and Harper was recruited to be a part of it. Political pressure led by Alabama Republican U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville, one of the most vocal transphobes in elected office, forced Nike to retreat.

‘The haters got wind of it,’ she [Harper] said. ‘I regret that they make [sic] this decision. I wish they hadn’t pulled out,’ she [he] continued. ‘But, I think we should focus on the people who hate trans people and those aren’t the people at Nike. I understand in the wake of what happened to Bud Light that Nike got nervous. They made a corporate decision on this.’”

Harper once described himself as a scientist first, an athlete second, and a transgender person third, but when the reality of the world hits him in the face, the angry trans-identified man comes to the fore.

I wrote about this disturbing study about a year ago, Nike and Wu Tsai Alliance don’t want you to know about this study on trans kids as young as 12. Nike and Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance, a billionaire-backed research organization, had already, at the time I wrote that article, funded Ackerman to study how early suppression of puberty (children as young as 12) and administration of cross-sex hormones affects sports performance as compared to adolescents going through natural puberty.

Given that Ackerman is a strong supporter of inclusion of trans-identified males in female sports, it appeared she hoped that early hormonal “transition” would eliminate male advantage, and thus circumvent some sports policies that ban males who have been through any part of puberty. It was unclear what Nike and Wu Tsai hoped to gain from this ethical septic tank.

Ackerman had been very open about using funds from Nike and Wu Tsai, but the funders and the institutions where the study will take place? Not so much. It was never mentioned on Nike’s or Wu Tsai Alliance’s website, nor in Boston Children’s Hospital, Oregon Health & Sciences University, Colorado Children’s Hospital, or Stanford Medicine Children’s Health’s list of clinical trials. These institutions were chosen because each has a gender clinic from which kids with trans identities were recruited for the study. The fact that the gender clinics, not Ackerman, were directing these kids’ medical interventions is the only way this car crash made it through the Internal Review Board.

The interview with Harper in Outsport says that Nike “was prepared to fund” the study. That’s not true. Money had already changed hands. Harper, who worked at Oregon Health Services, and researchers at each of the other institutions had been hired, and inside sources confirm that kids from gender clinics had already been recruited. This study was in full swing.

Even if Ackerman et al were not actually prescribing puberty blockers and cross sex hormones to kids, the fact that this study involved a minor-aged cohort on whom an unevidenced experiment was being conducted would make any financial backer nervous. The optics were just too icky.

Think back: The Cass Review had come out, and the WPATH files. UK and Scandinavian countries had backpedaled vigorously on medicalization of minors. There was Gerald Posner’s expose of puberty blockers, several New York Times blockbusters, and an attempt by a trans advocate/scientist to bury results from her nearly $10M NIH-funded study that showed puberty blockers did not improve kids’ mental health. The long-term effects of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgery, including cognitive impairment, osteoporosis, infertility, and sexual dysfunction, to which children cannot fully conceive of much less consent to, were only just starting to be publicized in this country. Then, January 2025 brought the executive orders that directed agencies to pull funding for medicalization of trans minors. Though this was a temporary setback for the four gender clinics involved in the study—a federal judge blocked that executive order—the chill over being involved in any way with possible sterilization of children, got chillier, the ethics, shadier

The last evidence I have of Wu Tsai Alliance being involved in this now-defunct study was a slide Ackerman used in 2023 showing her funding sources. Considering that Wu Tsai Alliance’s foundational idea is not to study injury or disease, but rather “studying the human body at its healthiest and most vital,” Ackerman’s study never seemed a good fit for Wu Tsai.

She is apparently still receiving funding from that deep-pocketed group for research on women’s sports and female athletes (where funding is involved, Ackerman is clear about who is actually female), but it appears Wu Tsai quietly sidled away some time ago from her swerve into the dark side. It took Nike a bit longer to discover their bottom line ethics.

Thus, Harper mentioned only Nike as the money bags who “pulled out.” Still confident that Nike’s bout of nerves over being associated with unevidenced experiments on children is a passing thing, a topic they will no doubt team up on once the dust has settled, Harper instead urges everyone to “focus on people who hate trans people.” And that is not Nike, Harper assures, kissing up to the ever shrinking number of organizations buying what he’s selling.

Operation Let Them Speak: Hopefully The Last Words of Joanna Harper

It’s notable that the news of the shuttering of this study did not come from the lead researcher—Ackerman—nor from Nike or Wu Tsai Alliance. They have all quickly pivoted; they all have other irons in the fire.

Not so Harper. Harper is the only one personally aggrieved, characterizing this defunding as a result of hate. He told Outsports dramatically: “I will die on the hill that I think that data should be the leading factor in this. I may literally die on that hill because it certainly hasn’t proven to be a popular opinion. It is a sad thing to understand that by putting myself out there, I am putting myself potentially in danger, but that’s my hill. That’s who I am. I am absolutely committed to the science.”

Which is odd since his own data has told him over and over again that: “hormone therapy decreases strength, LBM [lean body mass] and muscle area, yet values remain above that observed in cisgender women, even after 36 months. These findings suggest that strength may be well preserved in transwomen during the first 3 years of hormone therapy.”

With the shuttering of this study and recent news that the IOC, where Harper was for a decade patronized, plans to institute genetic testing, all of his identities—as a scientist, as a woman—are dissolving in real time. A recent emotional outburst at the Play The Game conference revealed that Harper’s decade-long campaign to allow males in female sports came down to this decidedly unscientific argument: Because we want to. To Jon Pike’s suggestion that sports be recategorized as Female and Open, Harper said: “The open category will be 99% cisgender male. Most trans women, myself included, would rather quit their sport than compete in such a category.”

Surrendering all pretense of scientific rigor, or even a firm grasp on reality, Harper let the spittle fly all over the friendly folks at Outsports:

“Trans women aren’t men. They don’t compete like men, don’t look like men and that would bring trans women into an arena where they are not welcome, not wanted and in danger. I think it’s an insult to suggest that this is a workable solution. I think it’s the very worst solution that you could come up with.”

Spoken like an angry trans-identified man. I particularly appreciate that Harper, the scientist, who will die on the hill of data, resorts to, of all things, appearance, to prove that “trans women” are not men—they don’t look like men.

Throughout this decades long carnival ride through insanity it seemed we would never hit bottom. There was always a new low. But when the ethics of studying medicalized kids are dubious enough to scare off Nike for the love of god, I honestly have hope.