Yeah, people are really missing that this is the point. It's a quadruple whammy. Anything to garner further support for press restrictions, scientific restrictions and imposing personal choice restrictions on people in the "out" group.
There's no way the people in charge of writing this article didn't know that they weren't making transgender mice. What they did know, however, was the depraved depths of gullibility, hate and stupidity of their audience and they played right to them.