# Transgenic vs transgender **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [March 8, 2025, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenic-vs-transgender/1015314 "2025-03-08T23:46:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2025, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenic-vs-transgender/1015314/21 "2025-03-09T08:35:20Z")
Quite so - and the whole thing is aggravated by the time factor too - the moment has passed - the truth and facts can be published, but the bullshitter can just wave them away with “you’re not still on about _ **that** _ are you?”, whilst ejecting a fresh torrent of different bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2025, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenic-vs-transgender/1015314/22 "2025-03-09T08:51:25Z")
You have convinced me: I will include transubstantiation in my bullshit bingo card. Curious, BTW, that you anglophones write that with one “s”, German writes it with 2 (see **[here](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsubstantiation)**) while **[Spanish](https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transubstanciaci%C3%B3n)** aligns with English. Interestingly an-ethymological IMO) I voted dumb, BTW, but agree with all those who say both aspects inextricably linked together. He is dumb, he is evil, he is manipulative, he is vile, he is envious, and I still do not understand how he gets away with all the shit. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2025, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenic-vs-transgender/1015314/23 "2025-03-09T09:04:08Z")
Am I the only one who was totally gobsmacked by the statement, **on an official White House news page** , that “_The Fake News losers at CNN immediately tried to fact check it, but President Trump was right (as usual)_”? The 6-year-old level of juvenile taunting on the White House website is a remarkable new low even for the Trump-appointed clowns who currently inhabit the place. This was either dictated directly by Trump or composed by a sycophant expressly to appeal to his grossly immature childlike mentality. It’s a national embarrassment that goes beyond anything ever seen in Trump 1.0, and that was bad enough. How can any country in the world have any respect for this bunch of clowns, or place any trust in them? ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2025, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenic-vs-transgender/1015314/24 "2025-03-09T10:32:38Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > The 6-year-old level of juvenile taunting on the White House website Hey! I have a six year old son. This is four year old level. And like many boys his age occasionally wears dresses. Such is life. I’m just going to embrace his identification as he grows up. Ha, so I am, on second reading, ageist but not gender disphorialist. (Is that a word? It probably should be) ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2025, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenic-vs-transgender/1015314/25 "2025-03-09T10:48:26Z")
This OP is doing exactly what many of the replies accuse Trump of: spreading debunked nonsense. People will still believe the false claim that Trump mixed up ‘transgender’ and ‘transgenic’ years from now, even though CNN corrected their fact check the very next day, because > [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > “The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.” What Trump was guilty of was giving a misleading description of genuine research: the point was not to ‘turn mice transgender’, it was to test various effects of gender affirming hormone therapy in animal models. This is a reasonable and useful thing to research, and it’s very bad that Trump is cancelling medical research willy-nilly - but instead of focusing on that, critics are pointing and laughing over a false claim that he mixed up two similar words, and making themselves look foolish in the process. 🤦‍♀️ ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2025, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenic-vs-transgender/1015314/26 "2025-03-09T12:05:02Z")
It’s pretty well known (at least in my circles) that Trump often is strongly, repeatedly, corrected on something he says. Then he continues to repeat it anyway with no remorse. Whether this is willful ignorance or deliberate audience manipulation is hard to say. IMHO (I am not a psychologist) it is irrelevant. He is preaching to the choir, and they lap it up like cream to a kitten. To this crowd, Trump cannot _ever_ be wrong. God said it, the universe bows to His will, and it is now fact. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2025, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenic-vs-transgender/1015314/27 "2025-03-09T12:26:39Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > I find it impossible to vote in the poll because Trump is absolutely both dumb and malicious and the two are impossible to untangle. I follow the old rule, “Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.” At some point, you’ve made so many “innocent mistakes” that all happen to push in one direction that it’s no longer random. Someone, somewhere, is looking for places they can make these “mistakes”, in order to keep pushing an agenda, while trying to claim plausible deniability. “Kitty litter in classrooms”, “Get rid of Enola Gay”, “Transgender mice”, well that’s three “innocent mistakes” that all push an anti-queer agenda in one form or another. Enemy action. And we can list a lot more than three, two of those are just the most recent examples. And we can apply this to all the other issues as well. Compare how many times they’ve “accidentally” used Nazi symbology, as compared to accidentally using Soviet symbology. ---
**Author:** ![GailForce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/dfb087/32.png) [@GailForce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GailForce)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2025, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenic-vs-transgender/1015314/28 "2025-03-09T12:41:28Z")
Excuse me? I thought i was clear but let me clarify further. I’m seeking to learn if people think he knows the difference between the two terms but was deliberately conflating them ( or his speechwriters were, with his assent) OR if he thought the two terms meant the same thing. Of course he is both stupid and manipulative, but the choices I’m giving are clear: either he understands the distinction or he doesn’t. How am i spreading debunked nonsense by asking this question? ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2025, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenic-vs-transgender/1015314/29 "2025-03-09T13:14:54Z")
> [@GailForce](#): > > Of course he is both stupid and manipulative, but the choices I’m giving are clear: either he understands the distinction or he doesn’t. How am i spreading debunked nonsense by asking this question? Because Trump **wasn’t** conflating ‘transgender’ and ‘transgenic’, either accidentally or purposely. He was talking about research like this: > [@](#): > > These include a National Institute of Health (NIH) funded project at Duke University that allegedly received $455,000 to study how HIV vaccines work in male mice subjected to female hormones – to imitate human gender transitions. > > In another experiment, scientists at the University of Michigan allegedly spent $2,588,000 of an NIH grant investigating the effects of hormone treatment in mice to imitate gender transition. > > A further experiment at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre allegedly spent $300,000 investigating breast cancer risk for transgender people by looking at tumours in mice. > **[Trump said the US spent $8m on transgender mice – he was right](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics/2025/03/06/trump-said-us-spent-8m-dollars-trans-mice-he-was-right/)** > > President refers to non-profit investigating taxpayer-funded experiments on the effects of gender-affirming drugs in rodents So neither option in the OP is true; it’s based on false information. Here’s what CNN says now, it’s part of a longer article so hopefully okay to post: > [@](#): > > **DOGE and transgender mice:** Trump claimed on Tuesday that the Department of Government Efficiency identified government spending of “$8 million for making mice transgender.” This claim needs context. > > The morning after Trump’s speech, the White House provided a list of $8.3 million in federal grants to health studies that involve mice receiving treatments that can be used in gender-affirming health care. The White House list made clear what Trump, in the speech, did not: The studies were meant to figure out how these treatments might affect the health of humans who take them, not for the purpose of making mice transgender. > > For example, the National Cancer Institute awarded $299,940 to one project in 2023 to compare breast cancer rates among female mice and those receiving testosterone therapy. Hormone regulation of breast development is similar in mice and humans, and the research allows for much faster findings than a prospective study in humans. > > And awards totaling $455,120 went from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to two projects between the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years to test differences in the ways an HIV vaccine worked in mice that had received cross-sex hormone therapy. The research has an “ultimate goal of designing an HIV vaccine that maximizes efficacy but minimizes adverse outcomes,” according to the project description on the National Institutes of Health website. > > _From CNN’s Deidre McPhillips_ > > _An earlier version of this item incorrectly characterized as false Trump’s claim about federal money being spent for “making mice transgender.” The article has been updated with context about the spending, which was for research studies on the potential human health impacts of treatments used in gender-affirming care._ > **[Fact-checking Trump’s address to Congress | CNN Politics](https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/04/politics/fact-check-trump-address-congress/index.html)** > > President Donald Trump made numerous false claims in his Tuesday speech to a joint session of Congress. The falsehoods spanned a variety of topics, including the Department of Government Efficiency, inflation and immigration. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2025, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenic-vs-transgender/1015314/30 "2025-03-09T13:39:52Z")
And sorry if I came across as overly hostile. It’s not really your fault, it’s the media’s for inventing this story; it’s just aggravating to see smug replies about misinformation when they are directly contributing to it themselves. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2025, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenic-vs-transgender/1015314/31 "2025-03-09T13:58:25Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > And sorry if I came across as overly hostile. It’s not really your fault, it’s the media’s for inventing this story; it’s just aggravating to see smug replies about misinformation when they are directly contributing to it themselves.   WTF are you talking about? Here is exactly what Trump said, as reported by the White House statement and which can be heard on a replay of the speech: > Last night, President Donald J. Trump highlighted many of the egregious examples of waste, fraud, and abuse funded by American taxpayers, including $8 million spent by the Biden Administration for "making mice transgender.” “Making mice transgender”: His words. That was all he said: $8 million spent by the Biden administration to “make mice transgender”. Then he moved on to other lies. So what did the media “invent”? The White House statement is the usual back-pedaling and “clarification” typical after one of Trump’s many ignorant blunders, none of which had anything to do with what Trump actually said, and which itself is full of misrepresentations. This was important medical research with many potential applications that, far from being “egregious examples of waste, fraud, and abuse” advanced medical research at a very low cost. There were no “transgender mice”. In these circumstances, the OP understandably asks whether Trump was just dumb or being intentionally manipulative. What about that is “smug” or “misinformation”? ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2025, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenic-vs-transgender/1015314/32 "2025-03-09T14:01:42Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > The White House statement is the usual back-pedaling and “clarification” typical after one of Trump’s many ignorant blunders, none of which had anything to do with what Trump actually said, and which itself is full of misrepresentations. OTTOMH The MAGA folks did the same thing with “Good people on both sides” and more recently when Trump said he would turn Gaza into a resort. ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2025, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenic-vs-transgender/1015314/33 "2025-03-09T14:09:22Z")
> [@GailForce](#): > > But mainly I’m interested in knowing whether you think of him primarily as ignorant or malicious Trump is a dedicated practitioner of ‘Christian Positive Thinking’ as taught him by [Dr. Norman Vincent Peale](https://www.christopherlane.org/2024/04/02/unholy-influence-the-success-gospel-of-norman-vincent-peale-and-donald-trump/#:~:text=positive%20psychology%2C%20Peale%20warned%20the,%E2%80%9D). Reality can be made to conform to his strongly held beliefs. The world is as he [believes](https://www.politico.eu/article/the-power-of-trumps-positive-thinking/#:~:text=Peale%2C%20then%20nearly%2080%20years,The%20Art%20of%20the%20Deal) it to be. We are in the ‘Golden Age of Trump’. We are the beneficiaries of his omniscience. "Christian Positive Thinking’ encourages ignorance. One can replace the pesky tedium of scientific investigation with common sense. Trump was lumping, not distinguishing, terms. He does not know, or see any reason to care, about a difference. So, it’s ignorance. However the smallness of his world also makes him malicious. I am overwhelmed observing our modern technological society, choose as its’ leader, a religiously deranged man with the mental scope of a six year old. ---
**Author:** ![LouMa](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/louma/32/19472_2.png) [@LouMa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouMa)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2025, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenic-vs-transgender/1015314/34 "2025-03-09T14:32:33Z")
I certainly don’t consider Trump an intelligent man. And yes, he is manipulative to a high extent. But there is another mark to his personality: he is evil, malicious from his deepest inner core. Revengeful to an unbelievable grade, incapable of feelings. He is untrustworthy, a notorious lyer and so on. To my understanding (I am by no means a psychologist) he is deeply mentally ill, completely unhinged. He is a psychopath and should be in medical treatment in a closed psychiatric ward. The fact that his decisions have such dire consequences on so many people is a tragedy. A psychopath should not get any power over the lives of other people let alone nations. He is charming if he wants and in the next moment full of hate and perfidy. Some years or even decades in retrospective people might call it one of the saddest political tragedies that a once successful nation succumbed to the spell of a cold malicious lunatic who lead the whole nation into decline. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2025, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenic-vs-transgender/1015314/35 "2025-03-09T14:54:07Z")
Now in support of the evil option is this executive order, signed by Trump: > **[Addressing Risks from Perkins Coie LLP](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/addressing-risks-from-perkins-coie-llp/)** > > By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1. Purpose. The First paragraph: > The dishonest and dangerous activity of the law firm Perkins Coie LLP (“Perkins Coie”) has affected this country for decades. Notably, in 2016 while representing failed Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS, which then manufactured a false “dossier” designed to steal an election. This egregious activity is part of a pattern. Perkins Coie has worked with activist donors including George Soros to judicially overturn popular, necessary, and democratically enacted election laws, including those requiring voter identification. In one such case, a court was forced to sanction Perkins Coie attorneys for an unethical lack of candor before the court. It does not get any better. It is spite, jealousy, envy all the way down. And dumb as fuck on top of it. ---
**Author:** ![FinsToTheLeft](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finstotheleft/32/2930_2.png) [@FinsToTheLeft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinsToTheLeft)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2025, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenic-vs-transgender/1015314/36 "2025-03-09T15:15:34Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > A further experiment at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre allegedly spent $300,000 investigating breast cancer risk for transgender people by looking at tumours in mice. What monsters would conduct research on breast cancer? Donald Trump is a Great Man™️! /s ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2025, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenic-vs-transgender/1015314/37 "2025-03-09T17:18:19Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > How can any country in the world have any respect for this bunch of clowns, or place any trust in them? They can’t and they shouldn’t. I was going to say we are rapidly becoming a pariah nation, but I think we’re already there, thanks to the dumb malice and malicious stupidity running the country now. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2025, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenic-vs-transgender/1015314/38 "2025-03-09T17:26:36Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > Someone on his staff saw that line item and mis-read it OR purposefully decided to say “Fuck it, it’s close enough to rile up the rubes. Yeah, this the thing the makes this more scary (one of the bazillion things at least). Of course Trump doesn’t know the difference between transgenic and transgender (or care). But the people handling don’t know the difference either The last Trump administration did feature a few vaguely competent individuals, but after they developed the teensiest bit of backbone after the fact, and came out against Trump, this time round we are left with utterly incompetent yes men who’s only quality is absolutely loyalty to Trump (because they owe everything to him, as they aren’t qualified to be assistant manager at a McDonald’s without Trump) ---
**Author:** ![Zoobi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/13edae/32.png) [@Zoobi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoobi)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2025, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenic-vs-transgender/1015314/39 "2025-03-09T17:27:16Z")
If your already have a strong antipathy towards transgender people then it’s very easy to trust people who tell you they are wasting your money. Just look at who is helping spin the obvious lie. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2025, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenic-vs-transgender/1015314/40 "2025-03-09T18:16:29Z")
> [@LouMa](#): > > He is charming if he wants The only evidence I see here is that he did manage to marry (and even have sex with) some good looking women. Aside from that… he is as charming as a pig in shit that just shat himself and is rolling in it. Thank god, in my “shithole country” as he so kindly describes the places to which he just cut off USAID - while gender affirming surgery is expensive - it only costs approximately US$10 (plus a long wait at the government office) to change your official gender. Hey! Government sometimes does work. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenic-vs-transgender/1015314.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenic-vs-transgender/1015314.md?page=3)