Trump administration pulls $120k in grants for LGBTQ+ cartoonist and multiethnic literature research

The Trump administration has withdrawn two National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grants totalling $120,000, stripping funding from research projects centred on LGBTQ+ cartoonists and multiethnic graphic literature - a move critics say forms part of a wider pattern of ideological targeting against queer scholarship and marginalised communities.

According to a report published on 10 March, the NEH cancelled a $60,000 grant awarded to University of Florida English professor Margaret Alice Galvan for Comics in Movement, a book exploring how LGBTQ+ cartoonists transformed the medium through grassroots formats during the 1980s and 1990s. The project documents queer life and activism during a period marked by government neglect of the HIV/AIDS crisis, highlighting creative resistance in the face of state indifference. 

A second $60,000 grant - awarded to Maite Urcaregui of San José State University - was also revoked. Her project, Seeing Citizenship, examines how multiethnic graphic literature by Asian American, African American, Arab American and Latinx creators exposes inequalities in American citizenship and political belonging. The research planned to analyse 20th‑ and 21st‑century graphic works alongside visual archives and critical legal histories to reveal how race, identity and civic exclusion intersect in contemporary culture. 

Both grants were originally approved at the end of 2024 under the Biden administration but were terminated in April 2025 after Trump returned to office. Although they still appear on the NEH website, the agency confirmed their cancellation alongside more than 1,200 other grants axed due to federal cost‑cutting measures - cuts disproportionately hitting projects centred on race, identity and LGBTQ+ communities. 

This latest development slots into a broader, troubling trend. Under Trump, LGBTQ‑focused studies across multiple federal agencies - especially the National Institutes of Health - have faced sweeping cancellations. In 2025, at least 68 grants focused on LGBTQ+ health were abruptly terminated, affecting research on HIV prevention, cancer, youth suicide and long‑term health outcomes for older LGBTQ adults. Researchers described the cuts as “a loss of a whole generation of science” and warned of devastating consequences for public health and queer wellbeing across the United States. 

In some cases, entire research fields have been destabilised. NBC News reported that more than 270 LGBTQ‑related health grants - representing over $125 million in unspent funds - were axed as part of a larger rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, as well as studies acknowledging transgender identities. Academic teams now face mass layoffs, stalled research, and the dismantling of decades of progress aimed at reducing health disparities for queer and trans people.