The transgender community became a central talking point during President Trump’s address to the nation and Congress on Tuesday, where he made false claims that Democrats had funded scientific studies to “make mice transgender.”
In the opening portion of his speech, Trump declared that there are only two genders—male and female—and emphasized his efforts to ban trans women from participating in women’s sports. As he shifted to criticizing government-funded programs and research initiatives introduced by Democrats, he singled out one study in particular—what he described as research on “making mice transgender.”
While addressing Congress, Trump claimed that Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have been working to expose wasteful government spending, alleging that an “$8 million study for making mice transgender” was among the expenditures.
Fact-Checking Trump’s Claims
CNN journalist Deirde McPhillips disputed Trump’s assertion, stating, “Between the 2021 and 2022 fiscal years, the National Institutes of Health awarded a total of $477,121 to three projects that involved administering feminizing hormone therapy to monkeys to understand how it may affect their immune system and make them more susceptible to HIV.”
She further explained, “Feminizing hormone therapy is a gender-affirming treatment used to block the effects of the male hormone testosterone and promote feminine characteristics among transgender women.”
McPhillips noted that a 2013 study across 15 countries, including the U.S., found that transgender women are nearly 50 times more likely to contract HIV than other adults. However, she emphasized that there is no clear source for Trump’s $8 million figure.
The Study in Question
The study that Trump potentially could have been referring to was referenced in Repersetives Nacy Mace’s hearing on February 6 titled, “Transgender Lab Rats and Poisoned Puppies: Oversight of Taxpayer-Funded Animal Cruelty. She refers to the study as “wasted to create transgender mice, rats, and monkeys in university labs.”
Mace says during her hearing, “Late last year, the White Coat Waste Project exposed that more than $10 million dollars in taxpayer funds were spent creating transgender mice, rats, and monkeys.
“These DEI grants funded painful and deadly transgender experiments that forced lab animals to undergo invasive surgeries and hormone therapies at universities across the country,” Mace alleged. “For example, the Biden-Harris Administration spent $2.5 million taxpayer dollars to study the fertility of transgender mice.”
A report presented during the hearing detailed eight NIH-funded studies, which primarily focused on the effects of hormone therapy on human health.
One study examined how testosterone and estrogen impact wound healing to improve care for trans individuals and those with chronic pain. Another explored how estrogen and anti-testosterone therapy influence the immune response to an HIV vaccine—a critical area of research, as a CDC study found that 42% of trans women surveyed in seven U.S. cities between 2019 and 2020 were HIV-positive.
Additional studies investigated the effects of hormone therapy on fertility, including whether testosterone treatment causes infertility and whether it can be reversed after stopping therapy. These findings aim to improve clinical care and research for LGBTQ patients across the country.
White House Responds to Trump’s Claims
On Wednesday, the White House responded to Trump’s false claims, clarifying that the studies he mentioned were actually focused on how hormone therapy affects human health. The White House press team cited research into testosterone therapy and breast cancer risk, as well as studies on how estrogen impacts asthma.
The Biden administration’s clarification directly refuted Trump’s assertion, reaffirming that none of the studies involved “making mice transgender.” Instead, they were designed to advance medical understanding of hormone therapy’s effects on human health.
Chrissy Newton is a PR professional and founder of VOCAB Communications. She currently appears on The Discovery Channel and Max and hosts the Rebelliously Curious podcast, which can be found on The Debrief’s YouTube Channel on all audio podcast streaming platforms. Follow her on X: @ChrissyNewton and at chrissynewton.com.