Overview

• During a speech to Congress, Donald Trump claimed $8 million was spent on making mice transgender, a statement widely debunked by experts and fact-checkers.
• The referenced studies used transgenic mice—genetically modified for medical research—to study hormone therapy effects on diseases like HIV, asthma, and breast cancer.
• The White House doubled down on Trump's claim, inaccurately characterizing the research as 'transgender experiments on mice.'
• Fact-checkers and researchers clarified that the studies aimed to improve understanding of hormone therapy's impact on human health, not to change the gender of mice.
• The controversy highlights a broader misunderstanding of scientific terminology and the purpose of biomedical research involving animal models.