Water turned the frogs gay

Are herbicides in the water causing children to become transgender?

But there is nothing about the frog study — or any others — to suggest atrazine would change humans’ sex.

“I study frogs because I like frogs, not because they are a stand-in for humans,” Hayes told POLITICO’s E&E News.

Frogs, like other amphibians, are naturally much more susceptible to even minor changes in their environment than humans.

"And 10% of the male frogs will turn into fully viable females able to produce viable eggs." 

Kennedy’s description of the study was mostly accurate, and when it was first published, the study garnered quite a lot of attention. There is also research that suggests a link to kidney disease, wheezing, and higher body mass index in farmers who use the herbicide.

He offered no examples of that evidence. Frogs live in the water they urinate in and so are less able to escape long-term exposure.

Hayes also said that amphibians, along with fish and some reptiles, have more sexual fluidity.

Concerns about atrazine center on its potential to disrupt hormones in the body. This occurred at atrazine levels as low as 0.1 parts per billion (ppb), 30 times lower than levels allowed in drinking water by the EPA (3 ppb).

Subsequent studies showed that native leopard frogs (Rana pipiens) collected from atrazine-contaminated streams in the Midwest, including from areas up to 1,000 miles from where atrazine is applied, often had eggs in their testes.

Pesticide Turns Male Frogs into Females.” Other articles described the frogs in the study as “gender-bending.”

Far-right personalities like Jones were not far behind, arguing the study was evidence that chemicals could have similar effects on people. And many males had lower testosterone levels than normal females and smaller than normal voice boxes, presumably limiting their ability to call mates.

Hayes’ research also established that many frogs in Midwestern streams contaminated by atrazine and other pesticides have compromised immune systems, leading to increased mortality from bacterial disease.

Those early studies were hampered by the inability to easily distinguish genetically male from genetically female frogs.

His administration has also promised to restrict trans peoples’ access to health care, and Kennedy himself has referred to puberty-blocking drugs used by some trans youth as “chemical castration,” contradicting the expertise of multiple medical associations.

“Each argument in the attempt to demean trans folks and compare us to contagions and toxins is basically an effort to give the appearance of legitimacy to their hate,” said Gillian Branstetter, a communications strategist with the American Civil Liberties Union.

Neither Kennedy nor the Trump administration responded to requests for comment.

The truth about atrazine

Atrazine, an endocrine-disrupting chemical, harms the body’s hormone systems and how they function.

But Hayes said that “when you have studies all over the world showing problems with atrazine in every vertebrate that has been looked at – fish, frogs, reptiles, birds, mammals – all of them can’t be wrong.”

“What people have to realize is that, just as with taking pharmaceuticals, they have to decide whether the benefits outweigh the costs,” he said.

Although low levels of testosterone can cause health problems, like reduced sex drive, fatigue, increased body fat, and depression, it has not been associated with gender dysphoria or being transgender, experts said.

Experts still don’t know why some people are transgender, or why more young people are identifying as transgender or gender-nonconforming.

They also promote drinking raw milk and eating raw eggs — foods they see as being more “natural” than those that have been heated up to stop the spread of diseases.

“Drinking raw milk is something that has always been around with cult followings, usually with groups you might characterize as hippies, but there has been a huge growth of it, and now it is often infused with white supremacy and other ideas,” Malloy said.

One of the most popular personalities promoting these views goes by the pseudonym Raw Egg Nationalist online, though in summer 2024 he was outed by a United Kingdom nonprofit as an Oxford and Cambridge-educated historian named Charles Cornish-Dale.

He's repeatedly called grieving parents and witnesses "crisis actors," which has gotten him sued for defamation.

So what does all of this have to do with frogs changing gender?

"If it’s doing that to frogs, there’s a lot of other evidence that it’s doing it to human beings as well," Kennedy said. After a month, 10 percent of the frogs exposed to atrazine had developed ovaries and female reproductive organs, although they were still genetically male.

Recent studies also found a possible link between human birth defects and low birth weight and atrazine exposure in the womb.

As a result of these studies, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is reviewing its regulations on use of the pesticide. Other male tadpoles exposed to atrazine remained male, but produced lower levels of testosterone and higher levels of estrogen than those that had not been exposed.

The results were the first indication that atrazine could be significantly harming frog populations writ-large.

“In exposed populations, it looks like there are frogs breeding but, in fact, the population is being very slowly degraded by the introduction of these altered animals.”

Some 80 million pounds of the herbicide atrazine are applied annually in the United States on corn and sorghum to control weeds and increase crop yield, but such widespread use also makes atrazine the most common pesticide contaminant of ground and surface water, according to various studies.

More and more research, however, is showing that atrazine interferes with endocrine hormones, such as estrogen and testosterone – in fish, amphibians, birds, reptiles, laboratory rodents and even human cell lines at levels of parts per billion.