A $600,000 federal grant to research feminine hygiene products was axed after US officials falsely labelled it a study on transgender menstrual cycles, underscoring the way that misinformation is underpinning a breakneck cost-cutting spree.
Elon Musk, President Donald Trump’s billionaire advisor, has overseen a crusade by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to slash government spending, ordering massive cuts and layoffs that have upended scientific research and foreign aid.
But the cost-cutters are spreading misinformation as they home in on their targets.
For example, the cancellations include funding awarded to Southern University in Louisiana, which Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins rescinded last month.
However, she falsely described it as a grant to study “menstrual cycles in transgender men.”
DOGE amplified her announcement on its website and X.
Outrage fueled by the misinformation grew so intense online that the professor in charge of the research, Samii Kennedy Benson, feared for her safety, multiple sources told AFP.
The true purpose of “Project Farm to Feminine Hygiene” was to explore how alternatives to synthetic pads, liners and underwear could be made using natural fibers such as regenerative cotton, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and interviews with five sources.
The effort also involved an outreach program educating women and girls about menstruation and the establishment of a local fiber-processing facility.
“This was just one more senseless, hateful cancellation,” one organizer with Acadian Brown Cotton, a fiber-producing initiative the university partnered with to supply cotton for testing, told AFP on condition of anonymity.
‘So angry’
In a letter to Louisiana Congressman Clay Higgins seen by AFP, Acadian Brown Cotton’s founder Sharon Donnan wrote that the funding was pulled over a “misunderstanding” and petitioned for its reinstatement.
“The real loss is for women,” Donnan told AFP.
“It makes me so angry that I want to start calling names.”
The word “transgender” is mentioned only once in the grant document, with a line noting that transgender men “may also menstruate.”
Southern University said in a statement that the project was “not a study on or including research on menstrual cycles.” The university declined to comment to AFP, and Benson did not respond to interview requests.
The transgender community has become a flashpoint in culture wars roiling the United States. Trump has signed several executive orders targeting them, including one instructing the government to recognize only two sexes, male and female.
The president has previously railed against experiments he falsely claimed were turning mice transgender, misrepresenting contracts revoked by DOGE.
Aside from women, the economic beneficiaries of Southern University’s initiative could have included cotton farmers in Louisiana, one of the nation’s poorest states.
“It would expand the market,” one grower, who produced the sample provided for Southern University’s research, told AFP. “It’s kind of sad it got cut off in the middle.”
Norris Green Jr, a Black farmer who was excited to contribute to research at the historically Black university, said officials responsible for the cuts should visit the state to understand the ground reality.
“Come to the Gulf and see how many of these females are impoverished,” he told AFP. “You might have a different perspective.”
‘Hostility’
A USDA spokesperson originally insisted to AFP that the project’s educational component “prioritized” transgender men.
When asked for evidence, the agency pointed only to the grant’s single line mentioning the word “transgender.”
Rollins, whose grant cancellation announcement received millions of views on X, went on to repeat the false claims during a White House Cabinet meeting.
A former Louisiana mayor also repeated them on local radio.
Across platforms and in the comment sections of articles echoing Rollins’s claims, posts called for people involved with the grant’s approval to be fired, publicly identified or prosecuted.
The episode underscores a pattern of deception around DOGE, which has touted massive savings on a website that US media have reported is riddled with errors.
Musk and other officials have repeatedly misrepresented government programs — from an invented tale about condoms for war-battered Gaza to misleading claims about Social Security recipients.
“Most factual information about DOGE either never makes it in front of the people who need it most or is received with hostility,” Audrey McCabe, an analyst with the watchdog group Common Cause, told AFP.
“Once a falsehood infiltrates public consciousness, an investigation correcting the lie can only do so much to cancel it out.”
