Trump doubles down on ‘anti-woke’ rhetoric and rants about transgender mice in bizarre speech
President Donald Trump addressed a joint session of Congress at the US Capitol. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump has stood by his series of anti-trans executive orders in his presidential address to Congress on Tuesday (4 March), as well as taking time to rant about ‘transgender mice’ at one point.
As he discussed some of the allegedly wasteful government spending the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has been targeting, Trump said: “[We found] $8 million for making mice transgender. This is real.”
It is, however, not real. In their rebuttal of his claim, CNN’s fact checkers say: “Between the 2021 and 2022 fiscal years, the National Institutes of Health awarded a total of $477,121 to three projects that involved administering feminizing hormone therapy to monkeys to understand how it may affect their immune system and make them more susceptible to HIV.” Mice were not involved.
Trump also praised his slew of executive orders which he has enacted since becoming president, saying, “We have accomplished more than most administrations in four or eight years, and we are just getting started.”
Many of the anti-LGBTQ+ law changes specifically target the trans community. Trump played into the culture war against trans and non-binary people on Tuesday’s (4 March) presidential address in the US Capitol.
“My administration is also working to protect our children from toxic ideologies in our schools,” he said.
He noted the 2021 case of January Littlejohn – who is often associated with the anti-trans group Moms for Liberty -, her husband and their child’s school. Trump claimed the institution “secretly socially transitioned” their child and “deceived” them. The case was dismissed by a federal judge in January 2023, stating that the lawsuit claims did not meet the standard of a federal law case.
Trump continued: “Stories like this are why shortly after taking office I signed an executive order banning our schools from indoctrinating our children with transgender ideology.
“I also signed an order to cut off all taxpayer funding to any institution that engages in the sexual mutilation of our youth,” he said of his anti-trans executive order restricting gender-affirming care for trans and nonbinary youth under 19.
“Now, I want Congress to pass a bill permanently banning and criminalising sex changes on children and forever ending the lie that any child is trapped in the wrong body.” He added of the anti-trans dog whistle, “This is a big lie.”
He reiterated an argument often propelled by far-right Christians, “Our message for every child in America is that, ‘you are perfect exactly the way God made you.’” This idea has previously been debunked by members of the church community, including Pope Francis, who welcomed the community to be baptised and become godparents.
“We’re getting wokeness out of our schools and out of our military – it is already out, and it is out of our society. We don’t want it. Wokeness is trouble. Wokeness is bad. It’s gone, it’s gone, and we feel so much better for it. Don’t we?”
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