(Casey Harper, The Center Square) U.S. taxpayers have shelled out tens of thousands of dollars in recent years to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for research on LGBT issues, the kind of funding now under scrutiny by the Trump administration.
The research relies on conducting interviews – in one case for $373 per Zoom call – to explore a researcher’s hypothesis of widespread discrimination.
For instance, one taxpayer-funded research grant studied “queer farmers quality of life in Pennsylvania,” federal records show, one of several grants of its kind.
The Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Projects – a federally funded research arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture – paid $14,997 for the 2018 grant.
While this grant is relatively small, there are others, and critics argue the spending is a distraction from helping farmers and lowering food prices, which soared during the Biden administration alongside this kind of research funding.
The aforementioned 2018 queer farmers grant went to Pennsylvania State University for a project titled: “Sexuality and Sustainable Agriculture: Examining Queer Farmers’ Quality of Life in Pennsylvania.”
The grant proposal says the topic is “woefully understudied.”
“The deeply entrenched assumption of heteronormativity in farming has excluded queer farmers from full inclusion and benefits from agriculture, even within sustainable agriculture,” the grant’s proposal abstract said.
The graduate student who assisted with the project, Michaela Hoffelmeyer, presented the findings to the Rural Sociological Society Annual Meeting in Richmond, Virginia.
Her research highlighted some of the challenges faced by queer farmers, reporting that “findings suggest that transgender, non-binary, and women farmers faced additional hurdles” but create support networks to overcome those challenges.
Hoffelmeyer has since gone on to join the faculty at the University of Wisconsin, where she has become a voice in the media and public policy on LGBT issues.
Hoffelmeyer says on the university website that she applies “feminist, queer, and labor theories” in her research to “inform agricultural programming and policy on how to make shifts to support viability, well-being, and sustainability.”
The faculty advisor for Hoffelmeyer’s project, Penn State University Assistant Professor Kathleen Sexsmith, oversaw another taxpayer-funded project along the same lines.
Latinx Gender Identities
Sexsmith’s 2021-2024 grant for $14,923 was awarded during the Biden administration and was titled: “Farming as a Latinx: Analyzing how ethnic and gender identities shape Latino/a participation in sustainable agriculture in Pennsylvania.”
The grant proposal points to the shift from white farmer in the U.S. to Hispanic farmers because of immigration and takes a moment to consider Hispanic masculinity.
“How do rural Latin American masculinities become reproduced or reshaped in the U.S. as they establish themselves as sustainable farmers, and how does is it impact the ability of women and men to meet sustainable agriculture goals?” the grant’s proposal abstract reads.
The researcher conducted 40 interviews over Zoom, averaging about 45 minutes, putting the taxpayer cost at about $373 per Zoom call.
“Initially, the project aimed to interview farmers directly, but due to the difficulties in accessing this hard-to-reach population, the focus shifted to institutional perspectives,” the report said.
The researcher said in the final report that Hispanic farmers suffer from systemic discrimination.
Queer Farmers’ Relationships
Another $15,000 grant in the federal database is titled: “Gender, Sexuality, and Social Sustainability: Exploring Queer Farmers’ Relationships, Ethics, and Practices in the Midwest.”
That 2022 grant went to the University of Notre Dame in response to a grant proposal promising to develop “a more comprehensive understanding of queer farmers’ experiences.”
The proposal for that grant posited that “we still have much to learn about the specific ways that narratives which posit heterosexuality and cisgender identities as ‘normal’ continue to uphold hegemonic power dynamics within alternative agriculture.”
The research’s final report said “findings show that queer farmers often struggle to find safe, supportive work or learning opportunities as a result of how other farmers, customers, and community members perceive their gender or sexuality, and even though many queer farmers having family connections to farming, they struggle to secure access to land because their family’s agricultural or social values don’t align with theirs.”
The faculty advisors for all three projects did not respond to a request for comment or declined to comment to The Center Square.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order upon taking office banning federal funding for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion projects, initiating a purge within the federal government.
Since then, Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency have been combing through federal spending records, exposing controversial taxpayer-funded projects, many of which the Trump administration has since terminated.
Musk and the Trump administration have faced legal challenges to these cuts, but the administration’s cost-cutting momentum has been fueled by examples of all kinds of controversial federal spending, particularly on DEI and LGBT issues.
The USDA said in a news release in February that it had “begun a comprehensive review of contracts, personnel, and employee trainings and DEI programs.
“In many cases, programs funded by the Biden administration focused on DEI initiatives that are contrary to the values of millions of American taxpayers,” USDA added.
