New LGBTQ+ insect just dropped. (From A: But is this really trans?)
By Abby Monteil October 8, 2024
From gay polyamorous flamingos to a “half-male, half-female bird” sighting, Mother Nature has proven that she’s pretty damn queer. But sometimes, scientists like to get in on the fun, too. It turns out that some are even using their talents to engineer “trans” mosquitoes (yes, really).
On October 5, the X account @Rainmaker1973 shared a video of a female mosquito attempting to bite a human hand. However, its blood-sucking attempts are thwarted because its proboscis — aka its needle-like mouth — could not break through the skin.
“Using the CRISPR technique, it’s possible to genetically modify mosquitoes by disabling a gene in females, so that their proboscis turns male, making them unable to pierce human skin,” @Rainmaker1973 explained.
Before we go further, a quick science lesson: According to the National Human Genome Research Institute, Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, or CRISPR, is a technology that allows scientists to selectively modify DNA.
So why use this technology on mosquitoes? Well, malaria, which kills more than 600,000 people per year, is transmitted to humans by female mosquitoes belonging to the genus Anopheles, which, per the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, encompasses between 30 and 40 mosquito species. According to a 2018 study in the journal Nature Biotechnology, using CRISPR technology on female mosquitoes resulted in egg production reaching the point of “total population collapse” within 7 to 11 generations. In other words, this technique allows scientists to not only ensure that female mosquitoes carrying malaria can’t spread the disease to humans, but that they can’t reproduce in general. This CRISPR-enabled gene editing is just one of several techniques that researchers have used to fight the spread of malaria in humans.
So, sure, in a manner of speaking, scientists are doing their best to curb the spread of malaria by making some mosquitoes “trans.” In addition to being a genetic achievement, @Rainmaker1973’s viral video sharing the news also unsurprisingly inspired some excellent tweets. (see on the page)
She strokin tryna wake it up OMG… hrt no joke,” one X user tweeted.
“Mosquitoes pissing me off so I took out my crispr and gave them gender dysphoria,” another joked.
The past few years have introduced no shortage of queer bugs, from fruit flies who were potentially turned gay by air pollution to cicadas who became hypersexual zombies after being infected with a sexually transmitted fungus. What’s a few more trans mosquitoes?
https://www.them.us/story/mosquitoes-trans-crispr-gene-editing
Scottie's Playtime 
No, I don’t think it is.
On the other hand … I know a few trans people who would volunteer for a CRISPR experiment to change their Y to an X, or vice versa.
Seriously though. Don’t experiment on human genes. That’s a bit too close to Dr. Mengele.
And yes, Ali, I know you weren’t advocating anything like that. Just stream of consciousness this morning. Blame the post vaccine hangover.
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No! Ugh.
And I asked the question because; I read the title, and thought, “Post!” So I got a post page ready, then went to read the article. By the time I finished, it occurred to me that first, who knows how mosquitoes feel about who they are (little bloodsuckers! But they probably worry most about being too close to starlings. Anyway.) So, seemed like a strike against actual transgender, to me, but what do I know? Next, they aren’t really making a choice to transition, though if/as it happens sometimes in nature, going one to the other, they likely don’t choose then, either. So, seemed like another strike against it being actually transgender, though I suppose the term could include this, being very literal about it.
But by then, I had a concern that, rather than making people more comfortable with transitioning/ed trans people, it might make them even less comfortable. And, here, it turns out to have done that for a trans person. I wonder if I should write a letter to the editor? I started to last night, but it’s “Them” magazine, and I’m not exactly a first hand expert in any of this, so I posted it here, and asked the question with it. I like making mosquitoes less dangerous for humans, for many reasons. But I worry about terminology-or semantics?-hurting people.
Whew. A lotta words, again. But, there is my thinking.
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