A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report linking support for gender-affirming care to political violence is drawing criticism from academics who say its research methods and conclusions are not adequately supported by the information made public. The report, released in August and titled “Where the Clinic Meets the Movement: Does Gender Ideology Arm Left-Wing Authoritarian Psychology?,” says support for gender-affirming care may be connected to “Left-Wing Authoritarianism” and willingness to justify political violence. It has not been peer reviewed, and its underlying data and funding have not been disclosed. Co-author Colin Wright said the data would be released soon and that the lack of journal review does not make the report pseudoscience. The researchers surveyed about 1,200 adults recruited through a paid online platform. Participants were asked about gender-affirming care, government censorship and capitalism, as well as whether violence could be justified against political figures including President Donald Trump and Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated in 2025, and health insurance CEO Brian Thompson, who was killed in 2024. Political psychologist Liliana Mason of Johns Hopkins University questioned the survey’s measures and said the sample overrepresented Democrats compared with the U.S. population. She also said the report did not place views about political violence in context across the political spectrum. Mason, who has studied support for political violence for more than a decade, said she would recommend rejecting the paper in peer review, citing concerns about its measures and whether it was written in good faith. Wright acknowledged that comparisons across political groups were relevant, but said the study was not intended to argue that violence is unique to the left or that right-wing violence is unimportant. He defended the use of a scale designed to measure left-wing authoritarianism, saying a different measure would have produced a different study. The report uses “gender ideology” interchangeably with gender-affirming care, a term used by major medical and mental health organizations for care provided to transgender patients. Critics say that framing casts transgender identity and support for transgender people as political threats. HHS did not respond to a request for an interview, and the report’s other authors declined interview requests. The study is part of a series of recent HHS actions challenging established models of transgender health care. In August, the Trump administration announced it would end Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program funding for gender-affirming care for young people, citing a separate agency review that characterized supporting evidence as very low quality. Weeks before the new report’s release, HHS issued another report accusing health providers of pressuring young people into gender-affirming surgeries and using fraudulent billing practices; critics have disputed the data behind those claims. The agency’s approach has raised concerns among some former officials and health advocates about the use of federal research to advance political aims. Adrian Shanker, a former deputy assistant secretary for health policy at HHS, said the department’s past work with outside researchers differed from what he sees as partnerships with politically aligned groups. Wright’s Manhattan Institute affiliation is listed in the report. He has also been connected to other organizations that oppose gender-affirming care, though he said it would be misleading to describe some of those connections as current institutional affiliations. The Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine rejects allegations that it promotes pseudoscience or anti-LGBTQ aims, saying it supports evidence-based medicine and opposes harassment and discrimination. HHS has not publicly provided the report’s data for independent review. Researchers’ concerns center on whether the findings and the broad claims built from them can be evaluated without that information and fuller comparisons across political groups.