On March 5, during the program “Solidarity Time,” guest political analyst Edisher Gvenetadze spoke about funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and claimed that the organization allocated funds for the creation of transgender rats.
Edisher Gvenetadze [18:40]: “As you mentioned earlier, the USAID-allocated funds were spent on creating transgender rats … Are they now using them for themselves?”
A similar claim was made by the leader of the political party Kartuli Dasi [Georgian Troupe], Jondi Bagaturia (1;2;3), during an appearance on “Real Politics,” a program by The Georgian Times. Although Bagaturia did not specifically mention USAID, he claimed that the money was spent for this purpose during the previous government’s tenure:
Jondi Bagaturia: “Completely disgraceful facts have been exposed [by Trump] about how money was wasted. Imagine spending $8 million on creating transgender mice – $8 million, the money of the American people, was spent on transgender mice.”
The claim that $8 million was allocated in the U.S. for creating transgender mice is being spread manipulatively. In reality, the funds were paid to various universities as part of multiple research projects aimed at studying the effects of hormone therapy. Mice were used as test subjects and were administered hormonal drugs. Additionally, these projects were financially supported not by USAID but by the U.S. Department of Health.
The likely source of Jondi Bagaturia and Edisher Gvenetadze’s claims appears to be U.S. President Donald Trump. On March 4, during a speech before Congress, Trump discussed the activities of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and thanked its head, billionaire Elon Musk, for his work. In the same context, the president also mentioned “transgender mice.” According to Trump, DOGE discovered that the U.S. had spent $45 million on scholarships in Myanmar related to diversity, equity, and inclusion; $40 million on improving the socio-economic conditions of migrants; $8 million on LGBTQ+ issues in Africa; and the same amount for “making mice transgender.”
The day after Trump’s speech, the White House issued a statement affirming the president’s claim and cited six projects as examples. According to the White House, the total value of the federal grants in question amounted to $8,290,053. The statement was released in response to CNN, which had initially labeled Trump’s claim as false.
American media fact-checked Trump’s remarks in Congress. After the White House’s statement, CNN revised its report but noted that the projects Trump was referring to were not actually aimed at creating transgender animals. Instead, the projects were designed to examine the effects of gender-related treatments and hormonal drugs on humans, requiring preliminary testing on animals, specifically, mice.
According to NBC, Trump spent 20 minutes discussing transgender-related topics. The media outlet also noted that it remained unclear which specific projects the president was referring to, but no grants were issued for the purpose of making rats transgender. NBC reviewed several medical research projects involving drug testing on mice, which were funded from the U.S. federal budget.
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What Do the Projects Cited by the White House Imply?
In its response clarifying Donald Trump’s reference to transgender mice, the White House listed six projects. All of them involve medical testing on mice to ensure the safety of treatment methods for humans. The first study mentioned aimed to determine the effects of hormone therapy on individuals who have received an HIV vaccine. The experiment was to be conducted on mice for observation. The study’s objective stated that biological sex impacts the immune system. Additionally, information on the immune responsiveness of transgender individuals to the HIV vaccine is scarce. Mice were used for observation because their immune systems are similar to those of humans. Notably, the study was funded by the U.S. Department of Health.
The next project discussed by the White House examined the reproductive consequences of steroid hormone administration. Gender-affirming treatment often involves testosterone, which may lead to decreased fertility, particularly in transgender men. This study aimed to analyze the effect of hormone therapy on the reproductive system by using mice. To this end, it was necessary to change their sex and initiate hormone therapy. The U.S. Department of Health has funded this research since 2019.
Other projects mentioned in the statement also focused on studying the consequences of hormone therapy. For example, one study aimed to assess the effect of gender-affirming hormone therapy on cancer risk and cancer treatment; another examined the impact of gonadal hormones on asthma exacerbations; and the third one studied how androgens affect the reproductive neuroendocrine axis. All studies used mice as test subjects, administering hormones necessary for gender-affirming treatment.
Yet another project, for which the Department of Health allocated over $700,000 last year, investigated microbiome-mediated effects of gender-affirming hormone therapy in mice. The study did not aim to create transgender animals. Its goal was to assess the impact of treatment methods, necessitating the use of test subjects – mice. The research was conducted by Emory University, which has received more than $7 billion from the state budget since 2008 (All Fiscal Years), with the Department of Health being its largest donor.
Thus, in reality, the funds were allocated not for the creation of transgender animals but for various research projects that used mice as test subjects. According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, mice and rats are the most commonly used animals in scientific research in American laboratories.
Following the U.S. president’s temporary suspension of foreign aid, numerous misleading claims have been circulated regarding its purpose and significance. In Georgian state-affiliated media, there were even claims that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded a “transgender monkey” program, allegedly addressing reproduction issues and LGBTQ+ propaganda among animals.
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