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TRUMP GENDER-101
TRUMP CHAOS IN SCIENCE is well documented: “Climate Change is a HOAX!” And this focused ignorance continues. Here are tidbits on another aspect of this, gender, from recent issues of AAAS Science as well as NPR. Note that I composed this item on April 27 and, thus, who knows what other Trump weaves of nonsense might occur between now and when you read it.
Trans Investigation? Rob Stein reports, “White House Orders NIH to Research Trans ‘Regret’ and ‘Detransition.” (Note the tone of scientific objectivity here.) Stein writes, “The directive was shared with NPR by two current NIH staffers who did not want to be identified for fear of retribution.” (Where have we heard this phrase before?) Stein continues, “It is from acting NIH Director Mark Memoli, and says the NIH must study the impact of ‘social transition and/or chemical and surgical mutilation’ among children who transition. Specifically, the White House wants the NIH to study ‘regret’ and ‘detransition’ among children and adults who have transitioned.”
This, of course, is after NIH drastically cut research support on anything even vaguely connected to LGBTQ+.
“The plan,” Stein writes, “is causing deep concern among many researchers and in the LGBTQ+ community…. ‘What they’re looking for is a political answer not a scientific one,’ says Adrian Shanker, who served as deputy assistant secretary for health policy at HHS under President Biden. ‘That should be an alarm for everyone who cares about the scientific integrity of the National Institutes of Health.’ ”
Less Than 1 Percent. Stein observes, “Many researchers say there is already a solid body of evidence that the level of regret after transition and the decision to reverse the transition is very low.” The American Journal of Surgery notes “Regret after gender affirming surgery is less than 1 percent.”
My imagined Trump Truth Social: “Let’s do whatever we can to GET THIS REGRET HIGHER!”
AAAS Science’s “Trump Tracker,” April 11, 2025, recounts, “Researchers criticized the latest directive as ideologically driven, unscientific, and stigmatizing.” And probably a lot worse.
Here’s an alternative for the Department of Health and Human Services: Study “the regret and detransition among adults who voted for Trump in 2024.” Now there’s a population cohort ripe for study.
Image adapted from MUSTAFAHCALAKI/STOCK.COM via Science.
LBGTQ Questions Cut. Katie Langin recounts in Science, April 18, 2025, “Sexual Orientation, Gender Options Cut From U.S. Ph.D. Graduate Survey.” She writes, “In an about-face approved this week by the federal office overseeing national surveys, U.S. researchers responding to a flagship census of Ph.D. recipients will no longer be invited to share information about their sexual orientation, and their options for gender will go back to a strict binary: male or female. Prompted by recent executive orders from President Donald Trump, the move reverses the U.S. National Science Foundation’s (NSF’s) addition last year of questions about sexual orientation and gender identity to its Survey of Earned Doctorates.”
Truth Social possibility: “A QUEER SCIENTIST? Who needs THEM?” Image from glaad.org.
Langin recounts, “Many STEM researchers and policymakers anticipated that the 2024 introduction of the new, more nuanced questions about gender identity and sexual orientation—which came after years of discussion and pilot tests—would help address that gap. The resulting data, they say, would enable researchers to tabulate how many scientists in the country are gender or sexual minorities, study what fields they go into, and assess whether they are underrepresented in STEM.”
One thing about GENDER-101, LBGTQ, and STEM is that they have already earned upper-case status, and thus are Trump-post-ready. ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025
Simanaitis Says 
From Facebook
Author: Kate Stanton Whalen
(She’s a friend of someone I worked with years ago.) I have not vetted the specific claims below but it makes sense.
Biology is a shitshow. Be kind, people, be kind.
Need to post this early and often:
Rebecca Helm, a biologist and an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, Asheville US writes:
Friendly neighborhood biologist here. I see a lot of people are talking about biological sexes and gender right now. Lots of folks make biological sex sex seem really simple. Well, since it’s so simple, let’s find the biological roots, shall we? Let’s talk about sex…[a thread]
If you know a bit about biology you will probably say that biological sex is caused by chromosomes, XX and you’re female, XY and you’re male. This is “chromosomal sex” but is it “biological sex”? Well…
Turns out there is only ONE GENE on the Y chromosome that really matters to sex. It’s called the SRY gene. During human embryonic development the SRY protein turns on male-associated genes. Having an SRY gene makes you “genetically male”. But is this “biological sex”?
Sometimes that SRY gene pops off the Y chromosome and over to an X chromosome. Surprise! So now you’ve got an X with an SRY and a Y without an SRY. What does this mean?
A Y with no SRY means physically you’re female, chromosomally you’re male (XY) and genetically you’re female (no SRY). An X with an SRY means you’re physically male, chromsomally female (XX) and genetically male (SRY). But biological sex is simple! There must be another answer…
Sex-related genes ultimately turn on hormones in specifics areas on the body, and reception of those hormones by cells throughout the body. Is this the root of “biological sex”??
“Hormonal male” means you produce ‘normal’ levels of male-associated hormones. Except some percentage of females will have higher levels of ‘male’ hormones than some percentage of males. Ditto ditto ‘female’ hormones. And…
…if you’re developing, your body may not produce enough hormones for your genetic sex. Leading you to be genetically male or female, chromosomally male or female, hormonally non-binary, and physically non-binary. Well, except cells have something to say about this…
Maybe cells are the answer to “biological sex”?? Right?? Cells have receptors that “hear” the signal from sex hormones. But sometimes those receptors don’t work. Like a mobile phone that’s on “do not disturb’. Call and cell, they will not answer.
What does this all mean?
It means you may be genetically male or female, chromosomally male or female, hormonally male/female/non-binary, with cells that may or may not hear the male/female/non-binary call, and all this leading to a body that can be male/non-binary/female.
Try out some combinations for yourself. Notice how confusing it gets? Can you point to what the absolute cause of biological sex is? Is it fair to judge people by it?
Of course you could try appealing to the numbers. “Most people are either male or female” you say. Except that as a biologist professor I will tell you…
The reason I don’t have my students look at their own chromosome in class is because people could learn that their chromosomal sex doesn’t match their physical sex, and learning that in the middle of a 10-point assignment is JUST NOT THE TIME.
Biological sex is complicated. Before you discriminate against someone on the basis of “biological sex” & identity, ask yourself: have you seen YOUR chromosomes? Do you know the genes of the people you love? The hormones of the people you work with? The state of their cells?
Since the answer will obviously be no, please be kind, respect people’s right to tell you who they are, and remember that you don’t have all the answers. Again: biology is complicated. Kindness and respect don’t have to be.
Note: Biological classifications exist. XX, XY, XXY XXYY and all manner of variation which is why sex isn’t classified as binary. You can’t have a binary classification system with more than two configurations even if two of those configurations are more common than others.
Tom, Thanks sincerely for this thoughtful and articulate comment. Alas, it likely won’t be accepted by any MAGA type. More’s the pity.—d
Sent from the all new AOL app for iOS
Tom, thanks for this fascinating, illuminating explanation. Dennis, sadly, is right. Such intensive elucidation will never be grasped by MAGATs looking for EZ answers in a complex world, hence their readiness to be led by the catcalls and name-calling of an incurious bubble boy whose speech, according to a renowned linguist, mired on the third grade level.
Thank you, both.