South Carolina Republican Nancy Mace slammed the Biden administration for using more than $10million in taxpayer money to fund ‘painful and deadly transgender experiments that forced lab animals to undergo invasive surgeries and hormone therapies.’
In a hearing Thursday, Rep Mace detailed findings from the White Coat Waste Project, which revealed the NIH had issued at least 10 federal funding grants to universities and hospitals nationwide to support studies into the effects of feminizing and masculinizing hormones in mice.
The research sought to understand how hormones might influence wound healing, how gender-affirming hormone therapy impacts the immune system, reproductive function and how feminizing hormones in trans women affect heart health, among other similar projects.
Rep Mace said in an Oversight Committee hearing titled ‘Transgender Lab Rats and Poisoned Puppies: Oversight of Taxpayer Funded Animal Cruelty,’ that the Biden administration had allowed taxpayer dollars to fund ‘surgically mutating animal genitals.’
She said in her opening statement: ‘The Biden-Harris Administration was so eager to propagate their radical gender ideology across all facets of American society that they did not pause to consider that such experiments are not only cruel, but unnecessary.’
The research that White Coat Waste gathered designed to improve understanding of how hormone therapies affect different aspects of health with the goal of improving the health of transgender people.
Scientific research is often conducted in mice because they share many genetic similarities with humans, making them a valuable model for studying human biology.
Rep Nancy Mace’s criticism was fueled by the White Coat Waste Project’s findings, which showed that the NIH had granted over 10 federal funds to universities and hospitals for studies on feminizing and masculinizing hormones in mice
The studies identified by White Coat Waste received grant funds for a wide range of amounts from $48,000 to over $3 million.
Justin Goodman, WCW’s senior vice president of advocacy and public policy, said the true totals are actually much higher: ‘We’ve also recently identified over $240 million in NIH grants for transgender animal experiments, including $26 million in active funding.
‘Some of these tests examine the effects of sex party drugs or the impact of hormones used for human gender transitions on the size and shape of lab animals’ genitals.’
The study with the most funding on WCW’s list of 10 explored how estrogen influenced lung inflammation caused by asthma by administering hormones to mice. The goal was to understand the sex-specific effects of estrogen in asthma, with the goal of developing personalized treatments for women.
Another study, which received $1.1 million in grant funding, investigated how sex hormones affect the way GHB – a rave drug popular among the LGBTQ+ community – is processed in the body.
The goal was to better understand how sex hormones influence the transporters in the body that affect GHB’s clearance and toxicity.
Mice constitute around 95 percent of laboratory animals used in research for more than gender transition treatments, including potential cancer cures and heart disease drugs.
An outspoken crusader against transgenders, Mace has sought to ban trans people from using their preferred bathrooms on Capitol Hill and other federal facilities
This chart shows insurance claims for diagnoses of gender dysphoria by year. These have doubled since 2017
It is standard for any experimental medication, including that which allows a person to change genders, to undergo animal testing.
Gender identity is a uniquely human experience not shared by mice.
Scientists can give mice hormone treatments to study biological effects, but this does not make them ‘transgender’ in the way humans use the term.
Ms Mace cited another study in which ‘Federal funds were also used to forcibly transition male monkeys to see if hormone therapy made them more susceptible to HIV.
‘Monkeys cannot be infected with HIV. Yet this federally funded experiment forced them to take hormone-altering drugs to study a virus they cannot have.
Monkeys cannot be infected with HIV. But they can be infected with SIV – simian immunodeficiency virus – which is a well-established model for studying HIV in humans.
Research on SIV has consistently helped scientists better understand HIV transmission, progression, and treatment.
Scientific research is often conducted in mice because they share many genetic similarities with humans, making them a valuable model for studying human biology
There is no indication that grant funding will be rescinded or the research forcibly stopped, but the Trump administration has pledged to slash the NIH’s funding.
When President Trump gained office, he issued a sweeping freeze on federal spending, which upended the NIH’s grant-making process.
The Trump administration has also launched a full-scale attack on anything in the government deemed to be DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion). They fall within the bounds of the ongoing culture war by focusing on gender differences and transgender health, which conservatives argue reflects ideological priorities rather than scientific necessity.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
