Campus Reform worked with the White Coat Waste Project and utilized the NIH’s RePORTER to compile a list exposing 10 taxpayer-funded transgender university animal studies funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH).
These studies administer transgender hormones to young mice to develop animal models that replicate transgender humans.
In many of these studies, scientists inject young female mice typically 26-days-old, with testosterone that researchers deem enough to make them ‘transgender.’ Following experimentation, the mice are euthanized.
Determining what qualifies as “transgender” in these studies is ultimately at the discretion of the researchers, drawing parallels with the former policies of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) regarding transgender athletes.
Campus Reform reported that the NCAA previously permitted biological men to compete in women’s categories after completing a year of testosterone suppression. However, even with variations in hormone levels, biological reality persists in the difference between men and women, including disparities in body mass, muscle composition, bone density, and the sizes of the heart and lungs.
1. Transitioning mice
$1.6 million was granted to the University of Michigan to make mice transgender.
The study uses gender-affirming hormone therapy that is commonly prescribed to transgender children and tests the treatment on young female mice.
Dr. Megan Killian, the recipient of the grant, serves as the Associate Chair for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Biomedical Engineering at the university, and is reportedly spending “millions of grant funds from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF) on transgender animal experiments,” as the White Coat Waste Project told Campus Reform.
2. Transgender breeding experiments
$2.6 million was granted to University of Michigan to study the fertility of transgender mice.
This study administers testosterone to young female mice to make them transgender and test their reproduction. This research is being used to learn more about the reproductive capabilities of biological females who have undergone transgender treatment.
“Our long-term goal is to provide the necessary data for evidence-based fertility counseling of transgender men,” the study states.
3. HIV
$455,120 was granted to Duke University to study HIV treatments on transgender mice.
The study cites that “transgender people [are] a population at considerably higher risk for HIV” and uses “an animal model of feminizing hormone therapy to study the effects of estrogen/anti-testosterone therapy on HIV vaccine-induced immune responses.”
4. Heart problems
$65,948 was granted to the University of Mississippi Medical Center to study cardiovascular risk in transgender rats.
The study tests how “gender affirming hormone therapy in a rodent model of the transfemale rat is associated with increased end organ damage and cardiovascular risk.”
5. Wound healing
$442,444 was granted to Harvard Medical School’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital to study wound healing in transgender mice.
The study aims to replicate the human wound healing processes following transgender surgeries, providing insights into recovery among transgender-identifying individuals.
6. Gut health
$735,113 was granted to Emory University to study gut bacteria in transgender mice.
The study says that transgender hormones can affect the gut microbiome, which is linked to bone health, and uses transgender mice to examine the skeletal effects of transgender hormones.
7. Breast cancer
$299,940 was granted to the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (affiliated with Harvard University) to study “breast cancer risk and treatment outcomes” in transgender mice.
The study compares cancer incidences and survival rates between “intact” female mice and those that have undergone transgender treatments.
8. Date-rape drugs
$1.15 million was granted to the University of the Pacific to study a sexual assault drug on transgender mice.
The study tests the overdose risk of a drug known for its popularity at raves and in situations of sexual assault “due to its’ [sic] euphoric, aphrodisiac, and sedative effects,” which is increasingly being used “in the LBGTQ community due to the prevalence of a phenomenon referred to as chemsex.”
9. Asthma
$3.1 million was granted to the Trustees of Indiana University to study asthma in the lungs of transgender mice.
The study aimed to show “the effects of feminizing hormone therapy with estrogen in the lungs of trans women” to help develop “treatments and recommendations for dosage… to treat and prevent asthma in cis and transgender women.”
10. InVitro
$2.1 million went to the Center for Research in Reproduction’s Ligand Assay and Analysis Core in the University of Virginia, which lists “support[ing] an assay menu (for human, rat and mouse samples) required by the majority of reproductive investigators that access the Facility” as part of its mission.
One of the studies supported by this grant researched reproductive outcomes in transgender mice, including In Vitro Fertilization (IVF).
The study used 80 female mice that were 26 days old and “superovulated” them to test IVF treatment using sperm collected from male mice that were later “euthanized and sacrificed by decapitation.”
The study found that “testosterone treatment negatively impacted IVF outcomes in animals.”
This article was originally published at campusreform.org
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