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Did President Donald Trump confuse research on transgenic mice with research involving "making mice transgender," when addressing Congress, as some social media users suggested? No, that's not true: On March 5, 2025, the White House issued a press release outlining the research the President was referring to. The listed studies were about the effects of certain medical interventions on mice that were used as lab analogs for transgender humans and only one of them mentioned "transgenic mice" in its abstract.

A suggestion appeared in a post (archived here) published on X March 5, 2025. It opened:

TransGENIC, you fucking idiot.

This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:

(Source: X screenshot taken on Wed Mar 5 17:40:19 2025 UTC)

The entry on X cited a fragment of Donald Trump's address before Congress, which aired live on TV on March 4, 2025. At the 1:42:22 mark, he said, referring to the federal spending:

Just listen to some of the appalling waste we have already identified.

At the 1:43:13 mark, Trump continued:

Eight million dollars for making mice transgender... This is real.

The studies

On March 5, 2025, the White House issued a press release (archived here) about the issue and it restated that Trump referred to:

$8 million spent by the Biden Administration 'for making mice transgender.'

The press release listed six studies from the database of federally funded research projects that used mice treated with hormones and researched different aspects of gender-affirming care:

• "A Mouse Model to Test the Effects of Gender-affirming Hormone Therapy on HIV Vaccine-induced Immune Responses" (archived here)
• "Reproductive Consequences of Steroid Hormone Administration" (archived here)
• "Gender-Affirming Testosterone Therapy on Breast Cancer Risk and Treatment Outcomes" (archived here)
• "Microbiome mediated effects of gender-affirming hormone therapy in mice" (archived here)
• "Androgen effects on the reproductive neuroendocrine axis" (archived here)
• "Gonadal hormones as mediators of sex and gender influences in asthma." (archived here)

The abstract texts of all the listed projects mention that the research involves issues related to "transgender" men, women, adults, people or individuals. Only one of the abstracts mentioned the word "transgenic" and that was in the context of using mice as analog for transgender humans:

...transgender male (female sex) human subjects and corresponding transgenic female mouse models...

Transgenic vs. Transgender

While similarly sounding, the two terms -- "transgender" and "transgenic" -- are not the same.

The website of the National Human Genome Research Institute (archived here) reads:

Transgenic refers to an organism or cell whose genome has been altered by the introduction of one or more foreign DNA sequences from another species by artificial means. Transgenic organisms are generated in the laboratory for research purposes.

The CDC website (archived here) explains that "transgender" is a different category:

Persons who are transgender have a gender identity that differs from the sex that they were assigned at birth (333,334). Transgender women (also known as trans women, transfeminine persons, or women of transgender experience) are women who were assigned male sex at birth (born with male anatomy). Transgender men (also known as trans men, transmasculine persons, or men of transgender experience) are men who were assigned female sex at birth (i.e., born with female anatomy). ... The term "cisgender" is used to describe persons who identify with their assigned sex at birth.

Conclusions

• The primary goal of the research was not "to make mice transgender" but it did involve mice treated in certain ways so they could substitute for transgender humans in lab experiments.
• President Trump did not confuse the terms "transgenic" and "transgender" here, he was expressing the opinion that this medical research into health issues affecting transgender persons is an "appalling waste" according to him.

Read more

Other Lead Stories fact checks concerning health-related topics are here.