Last Friday, federal agencies hurried to comply with a directive linked to President Trump’s order that rolls back protections for transgender individuals. This led to a flurry of changes, including the removal of health data from websites, blank pages, and the elimination of pronouns from email signatures.
The Office of Personnel Management issued a memo requiring agencies to remove any reference to “gender ideology” from their websites, contracts, and internal communications by 5 PM that same day. Agencies were also told to dissolve employee resource groups related to gender issues and replace “gender” with “sex” on official forms.
Consequently, many government websites experienced disruptions. Some showed messages like, “The page you’re looking for was not found,” while others vanished temporarily. When reporters inquired about the issue, Trump expressed uncertainty but showed support for the idea, claiming to have campaigned against diversity initiatives.
Many essential public health resources were affected, especially on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website. Information related to contraception, HIV and transgender health, and supportive school environments for transgender students was taken down. This loss raises concerns among health experts about creating dangerous gaps in critical scientific information.
The Infectious Diseases Society of America highlighted the importance of maintaining access to HIV-related resources, stressing that such information is vital for ending the HIV epidemic.
Changes spread across various agencies, with the Bureau of Prisons rebranding an “Inmate Gender” page to “Inmate Sex,” omitting data about transgender inmates. The State Department removed the option of selecting “X” as a gender marker on passport applications for nonbinary individuals, also replacing “gender” with “sex” in their descriptors. Employees were instructed to eliminate gender-specific pronouns from their email signatures, complying with new directives.
Concerns arose among federal employees who felt that gender-related programs and roles were being targeted under Trump’s executive orders. Reports suggested that staffers at the U.S. Agency for International Development were told to flag the use of “gender” in contracts, fearing repercussions for speaking out about these changes.
Other governmental bodies, including the Census Bureau and the National Park Service, also faced accessibility issues with their webpages. Trump’s executive order, signed on his first day back in office, sought to define sex only as male or female, mandating this definition across official documentation.
This push to limit discussions around gender identity within federal framework is significant, particularly with its implications for various sectors including health and education.
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Source linkDonald Trump, Pete Hegseth, Gender, General news, Washington news, Politics, U.S. news, U.S. Agency for International Development, Diversity, equity and inclusion, Health, U.S. Department of State, U.S. News
