You tax dollars, hard at work.
Via Free Beacon:
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is spending nearly $200,000 to study how transgender women use social networking sites like Facebook and how their use affects their chances of getting HIV.
The Friends Research Institute, based in Maryland, received $194,788 last month to begin the project operating on the premise that due to “transphobia” transgendered women are forced to use social media as an outlet, often leading to risky sexual behaviors.
“High-risk male-to-female transgender women (hereafter “transwomen”) face numerous concurrent cofactors for HIV acquisition and transmission including substance use, engagement in sex work, unemployment, low educational attainment, homelessness, and hormone misuse,” the grant’s description reads. “In Los Angeles County, estimates of HIV prevalence among transwomen are 15 [percent] overall, and 17 [percent] among Latinas, 29 [percent] among Native Americans, and 48 [percent] among African American/black transwomen.”
“As a result of discrimination/stigma, prejudice, and individual and structural forms of transphobia, transwomen form dense communities comprised primarily of other transwomen,” it said.
Facebook recently added more than 50 gender options for its users to choose from to accommodate transgendered individuals. Users can now identify as “Agender,” “Androgynous,” “Cis,” “Two-spirit,” or over 20 variations of “trans.”