A Nebraska professor was handed over $200,000 from the National Institute of Health (NIH) in June for a program to connect LGBTQ youth with LGBTQ adults for “mentoring,” according to the grant.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Professor Katie Edwards is piloting the “Online Mentoring Program to Prevent Adversities Among Trans and Other Gender Minority Youth” program, which was handed over $200,000 from the NIH, according to the grant’s description. The program plans to connect LGBTQ youth with adult LGBTQ “mentors” to promote “social-emotional skills acquisition.” (RELATED: School Boards Rebel Against California AG’s Gender Ideology Guidance)

“Few mentoring programs exist specifically for TGMY, and those that do have not been rigorously evaluated” and “often require guardian permission,” the grant’s description reads. TGMY stands for “transgender and other gender minority youth.”

The program plans to recruit 140 LGBTQ youth from social media and LGBTQ organizations, according to the grant. The project is aimed at testing an online mentoring and skill-building program for LGBTQ youth between the ages of 14 to 17.

LGBTQ youth experience high rates of psychosocial behavioral health issues which are rooted in “gender-related minority stress” which can be caused by “family rejection” and “internalized transphobia,” according to the grant’s description.

Gender studies and gender identity concepts have been questioned by mainstream scientists. Arizona State University professor of statistics and biostatistics Lawrence S. Mayer and John Hopkins University Medical School professor of psychiatrics Paul McHugh co-authored a report which said “the most frequently heard claims about sexuality and gender are not supported by scientific evidence” in a 2016 report.

The program will measure the efficacy of the LGBTQ youth mentoring program to reduce “mental health problems, self- harm, alcohol and drug use, sexual risk-taking,” according to the grant’s description.

The NIH has spent millions of dollars researching puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones since 2008.

The projected started July 1 and will end Jan. 31, 2025, according to the grant’s description. The NIH shelled out over $20,000 in February to research “trauma” caused to “LGBTQ people of color,” according to a separate grant. They also handed over more than $200,000 to a Seattle Hospital to create a sex-education tool for LGBTQ youth on Sept. 6, according to a different grant’s description.

Edwards and the NIH did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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