White House Scared of Trans Mouse – Mother Jones

Mice involved in hormone research in New York, July 26, 1995. Remi Benali/Getty

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“Eight million dollars for making mice transgender. This is real,” Donald Trump said in his first joint address to Congress on Tuesday, leading to an onslaught of online mockery. So the administration issued a release—titled “Yes, Biden Spent Millions on Transgender Animal Experiments”—to prove how right the commander-in-chief was. (Their other press release on Trump’s speech, “President Trump’s Historic Address Captivates America,” was roughly as accurate.)

Calling out the “Fake News losers at CNN” who “immediately tried to fact-check it,” the White House wrote:

FACT: Under the Biden Administration, the National Institutes of Health doled out millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded grants for institutions across the country to perform transgender experiments on mice.

It listed six NIH–funded experiments that involved mice and gender-related keywords, seemingly drawn in part from outspoken anti-trans House Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.)’s February testimony on “taxpayer-funded animal cruelty.”

Mice are the most common lab animal, central to biomedical research due to their short lifespans and biological similarities to humans. Are the mice transgender? No. Can we characterize them as “transgender experiments on mice”? Sure. Why not.

For example, one study asks how long-term gender-affirming hormone therapy affects skeletal maturation—a question raised by earlier research on bone density. Another considers how such care affects fertility. A third investigates differing breast cancer risks in those undergoing testosterone replacement therapy.

These are all questions important to any providing the best medical care in any scenario. And, in fact, many of the research questions—cancer, fertility, bone health—are questions that those skeptical of transgender health care bring up to suggest it should be further restricted.

As they beat the drum of “insufficient evidence,” you’d think that they would relish the chance to generate more evidence. Of course, these studies do conflict with their reality—or at least reveal a more nuanced one. (Don’t worry, the trans skeptics are busy producing their own which casts doubt on medical consensus.)

The results of the transgender mouse studies that so upset the White House? The skeletal maturation study showed that gender-affirming care preserves or improves bone formation. The fertility study showed that, while the number of eggs produced by trans men decreased, their quality did not. The one on cancer showed that trans men have a reduced risk of breast cancer after undergoing HRT—a useful finding for cisgender patients as well, researchers note.

The far right would be all for this research—if it proved their point. I mean, imagine the Daily Wire if any one of these studies had led to mass mouse death.

Notably, one of the studies listed in the White House document isn’t even about transgender health care. It asks how asthma affects regular ol’ men and women differently. (It had the word “sex hormones” in it, so it’s fair that they found it confusing.)

It’s a common talking point on the right to bring up animals in the same breath as trans people (litter box panics, Elon Baby Mom Four’s children’s book Elephants Are Not Birds). But I’m not sure they want to go down that rabbit hole. Then I’ll start talking about sex-changing clownfish. No one wants that.

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