The Same Dark Money Behind Project 2025 Is Bankrolling A Northwestern Study Recruiting Trans Kids

Project 2025 outright calls on conservatives to fund and manufacture more “studies” on the “negative” effects of trans-affirming care.

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An Erin in the Morning investigation has revealed that far-right dark money has been financing fringe “research” organizations that purport to undermine the evidence backing gender-affirming care. Among those beneficiaries is the Gender Dysphoria Institute (GDI), which is recruiting trans youth and their parents for AYAGDOS—the Adolescent and Young Adult Gender Dysphoria Outcomes Study.

The controversial initiative, conducted “in collaboration with Northwestern University” as per the GDI, is saturated with ties to anti-trans rights activists, Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate groups, and decades of alleged medical, sexual, and academic impropriety.

The stated purpose of AYAGDOS is to find out more about “gender dysphoria and related phenomena (such as transgender)” [sic]. The study is led by three controversial researchers: Dr. Lisa Littman, Dr. Kenneth Zucker, and Dr. J. Michael Bailey.

Bailey, a psychology professor at Northwestern University, is especially known for his widely-rebuked book of “original research” depicting trans women as sex-crazed “men” who are uniquely “well-suited to prostitution.”

This strikes quite a different tone from the public-facing rhetoric of the GDI, where Bailey is a founding board member. The Institute describes itself as “a nonpartisan, nonprofit, independent organization” that simply seeks to promote “evidence-based information about gender dysphoria.”

“Decisions about the research process and communication of findings are made by the researchers conducting the study,” a general disclaimer on GDI’s website adds. “These decisions are wholly independent from funders, lobbyist groups or other outside organizations.”

However, when asked about said funders, the AYAGDOS team remained tight-lipped. “The vast majority of donations to GDI come from individuals,” said Littman, who is also the GDI president, in an email to Erin in the Morning.

The AYAGDOS team would not elaborate further. Northwestern did not reply to requests for comment about AYAGDOS.

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Unlike many nonprofits, the GDI—also known as the Institute for Comprehensive Gender Dysphoria Research (ICGDR)—does not publicly disclose its donors. But Erin in the Morning was able to uncover them anyway, finding that, in 2024, the most recent tax filing available on ProPublica’s nonprofit finance database, almost 90% of the Gender Dysphoria Institute’s funding came from just two organizations: DonorsTrust, Inc. and the Santa Fe Boys Educational Foundation, the latter of which has since dissolved and turned into the Santa Fe Boys Fund (SFBF).

The GDI’s connection to DonorsTrust positions it as a battalion supported by the same army of right-wing megadonors, anti-trans pseudoscience activists, and Christian nationalists on the frontlines of Donald Trump’s all-out assault on human rights.

Project 2025—the Heritage Foundation’s step-by-step handbook for installing an authoritarian theocracy—outright calls on conservatives to fund and manufacture more “studies” on the “negative” effects of trans-affirming care. It is an essential component of their plan to eliminate “the toxic normalization of transgenderism.” The end goal, according to the Heritage Foundation’s president, is to “outlaw it”—transgender people, their care, and their affirming providers, at all stages, for all age groups.

But this can be unpopular, which is where DonorsTrust comes in. Its $1.4 billion dollar coffer has earned it a nickname: the right wing’s “ATM for dark money.”

As a donor-advised fund for “the conservative- and libertarian-minded” elite, DonorsTrust allows the ultra-rich to anonymously funnel money into the political cause or charity of their choosing. It was a principal funder of Project 2025—as well as the Gender Dysphoria Institute, providing $100,000 of the Institute’s $225,000 revenue for 2024.

That same year, DonorsTrust gave (at least) tens of millions of dollars to SPLC-designated hate groups that peddled anti-trans hate and misinformation, including the Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine (SEGM), Do No Harm, and the Alliance Defending Freedom. It also provided $365,000 to the Heritage Foundation, reserved specifically for its “Going On Offense On Gender Ideology” initiative.

These groups and the anti-trans pseudoscience network they cultivated have been instrumental in political attacks on trans people, contributing to the outcome of the Skrmetti ruling, being cited in countless bills and laws, and serving as the foundation for the HHS “report” used to undermine the rights of trans youth nationwide.

It’s not just DonorsTrust that ties the GDI to this network, either. Both the Institute’s founders and current leadership consist of many of the same names that repeatedly crop up in the realm of anti-trans pseudoscience: Anastassis Spiliadis, Roberto D’Angelo, Sasha Ayad, Stella O’Malley, Kristopher Kaliebe, and Lisa Marchiano to name a few.

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DonorsTrust dollars were matched only by the Santa Fe Boys Educational Foundation, which describes itself as a group dedicated to “the unique developmental needs of young males.” Its 2024 payout of $100,000 is more than the total amount of all donations that the Foundation has made in any single year during its entire history. Those efforts now continue in the form of the Santa Fe Boys Fund.

Last year, the Boys Fund sponsored a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group convention. Genspect’s 2025 gathering in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where founder Stella O’Malley (who also sits on the GDI board) thanked the Boys Fund founder, Dr. Paul Golding, alongside co-sponsors like Do No Harm, yet another SPLC-classified hate group, and the anti-trans sportswear brand XX-XY Athletics. It is the same conference where Littman presented her initial findings for AYAGDOS.

Golding, a Jungian psychoanalyst, told Erin in the Morning that he was not aware of Genspect’s hate group classification and that he “doesn’t know very much” about the Southern Poverty Law Center. But he rejected the idea that Genspect is hateful, as has Genspect.

Meanwhile, another anti-trans group, called Democrats for an Informed Approach on Gender (DIAG), also received a modest sum of $2,000 from Golding’s organization in 2024. “Generally, support of anti-trans stuff, awareness around trans stuff, is mainly promoted by conservative groups,” Golding said. “So, that appealed to me—that there was, you know, a Democratic side to the story.” (The group has no official ties with the Democratic Party, which has refused to sign off on its use of the Democrat name—a matter of ongoing litigation.)

While Golding declined to offer more specifics on the nature of his financial contributions to AYAGDOS, the Santa Fe Boys Fund (as opposed to the Santa Fe Boys Educational Foundation) was also listed on Northwestern’s mandatory disclosure forms for the study.

DonorsTrust is not.

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One more organization showed up in those disclosure forms: the Conru Foundation. The eponymous philanthropist and dating site mogul Andrew Conru gave Bailey $50,000 in 2020, but because it was written out to Northwestern, it didn’t show up in a search of GDI donors’ tax filings.

But Conru spoke at length with Erin in the Morning and was open about his philanthropic history. Over the years, Conru has donated to projects across the political spectrum—from Turning Point USA to the Trevor Project. He was subject to some public backlash after it came to light that he gave $1 million to a eugenics group. Conru apologized for the gaffe, attributing it to a lack of due diligence in vetting the groups he funds.

Conru told Erin in the Morning that he funded Bailey’s work because he “couldn’t find anyone else” studying his interest in gender expression and sexuality, namely “cross-dressers” and “autogynephilia”—a pathologized, disputed term widely considered to be offensive, painting trans women’s existence as a fetish. He has written about the topic himself, too. After being interviewed by Erin in the Morning, he said he would explore funding more research on gender issues from academics on “both sides” politically.

“The biggest thing I’ve learned is that, if you’re gonna fund something that has any controversy involved, spend a lot more time listening before you write that check—especially from people who might have alternative views from the person you’re giving the check to,” Conru told Erin in the Morning. “I do not want to fund anything that could possibly harm trans people.”

Conru asserted that research on trans issues was hard to find, but it’s important to note that ongoing studies, wide-reaching surveys, and academic literature on trans health and trans life from subject matter experts in reputable peer-reviewed journals are abundant and continuing to grow. The fanfare around the quality and quantity of evidence surrounding transness and gender-affirming care has often been misrepresented by anti-trans groups taking dark money dollars and feeding misinformation into the anti-trans pseudoscience machine.

These efforts more broadly undermine credible research and, beyond that, erode freedom of speech and thought. It’s why the conservative dark money behind Trumpian “science”—contesting everything from abortion, to climate change, to same-sex couples—often comes from the same sources funding the repression and censorship of transgender people and scholarship.

“If one side is leaning particularly on ideology, rather than a scientific basis for their arguments, that doesn’t often play well in certain courts, so you have to create ‘studies’ that might support your position,” said Dr. Jody Herman, a Senior Scholar of Public Policy at the Williams Institute and a co-investigator for some of the largest surveys of transgender Americans to date.

It’s also why, in recent years, academia has been flooded with journals that subvert the standard scientific process—those that skirt peer review, or ones that will publish anyone who pays, Herman told Erin in the Morning.

“In the research space, there’s a kind of a battle going on,” she said. “What is credible research, and what is research that is just being put out to have something to cite?”