A revelation buried deep within a recent New York Times profile has raised serious questions about Nike’s involvement in research on transgender youth athletes.
The extensive Times piece about former San Jose State volleyball player Blaire Fleming, a trans woman who competed on the women’s team, mentioned that researcher Joanna Harper is leading a study on transgender adolescents that monitors their physical fitness before and after medical transition.
According to the article, Harper told the Times in February that “the current climate makes the study somewhat uncertain,” but clarified that “money was not a problem: The study is being funded by Nike.”
The study reportedly measures participants’ results on a 10-step fitness test before they begin hormone therapy and then tracks changes every six months for five years after they begin medical transition.
Harper, who is transgender herself, previously served in an advisory role for the 2015 Olympics decision allowing transgender women to compete in women’s events with testosterone suppression.
When contacted by multiple outlets, Nike has not confirmed or denied their financial involvement in the research project. The company has not responded to repeated inquiries about their role in the study.
Nike’s website features a “No Pride, No Sport” section detailing partnerships with LGBTQIA+ organizations, but makes no mention of funding this particular research.
Previously, Nike’s “Unlimited Courage” ad spotlighted Chris Mosier, the first transgender athlete to make a U.S. national team. The film followed Mosier training and competing in triathlons while an unseen narrator asks pointed questions about the challenges he faced, like whether he was fast, strong, or accepted enough. Mosier candidly answers “I didn’t” to knowing and admits he wanted to give up but didn’t. The ad concludes with the tagline “Unlimited Courage,”. It’s worth nothing that Mosier is F to M, which is heaps more acceptable in terms of optics.
More recently, Nike’s “Play New” campaign featured Mara Gomez, the first transgender woman to play in Argentina’s professional soccer league. In the ad, Gomez shares how soccer became a tool for overcoming personal struggles and discusses her goal to inspire future athletes. Scenes show her training and celebrating, ending with soccer balls falling around her as a symbol of the generations she hopes to impact. Gomez also speaks about pushing for non-binary inclusion in FIFA regulations.
There’ also the infamous Nike’s “year of the woman” campaign. It got off to a rocky start after hiring trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney to promote its Alate sports bras and Zenvy leggings, sparking backlash from critics like Caitlyn Jenner and Sharron Davies. Despite criticism, Nike remained firm in its branding strategy.
The study’s principal investigator, Kathryn Ackerman of Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, has publicly stated that Nike is providing financial support as per outkick. During a 2023 seminar, Ackerman said, “Recently, we got some money from Nike, who wanted to study this more… they wanted to look at transgender folks who are going through the transition younger.”
The research aims to examine whether early medical intervention affects athletic performance. This connects to ongoing scientific discussion about what researchers call “retained male advantage” – the concept that transgender women maintain some physical advantages even after hormone therapy.
According to the Times, scientists like Michael Joyner believe there is “sufficient scientific evidence for retained male advantage to justify prohibiting trans female athletes from competing in elite women’s sports.” However, Harper’s research focuses on quantifying these advantages across different sports and age groups.
According to Sportico, Nike’s stock was the second-worst performer among the 30 components of the Dow in 2024. It is down a further 24% so far in 2025 and is at levels not seen since 2018.
Critics have questioned why a sports apparel company would fund such research. The study reportedly includes participants as young as 12 years old, raising ethical concerns from some observers.
Nike has built its brand partly on supporting women’s sports, making its alleged involvement in this research particularly noteworthy as debates continue about fairness in women’s athletics.
A Nike executive with knowledge of the situation ended up responding to OutKick. According to the executive, the study “was never initialized” and “is not moving forward.”
When asked if Nike was wrong to fund such a study, the executive said “no one was wrong” but that there might have been some “gaps in the information chain.”
Despite what this executive said – the Times insists: “We are confident in the accuracy of our reporting.”
