Public health data disappeared from websites, entire webpages went blank and employees erased pronouns from email signatures Friday as federal agencies scrambled to comply with a directive tied to President Donald Trump's order rolling back protections for transgender people.
The Office of Personnel Management directed agency heads to strip “gender ideology” from websites, contracts and emails in a memo sent Wednesday, with changes ordered to be instituted by 5 p.m. Friday. It also directed agencies to disband employee resource groups, terminate grants and contracts related to the issue, and replace the term “gender” with “sex” on government forms.
Some parts of government websites appeared with the message: “The page you’re looking for was not found.” Some pages disappeared and came back intermittently.
The list of sites affected Friday includes:
- National Park Service pages for historic sites related to the internment of Japanese Americans, the Tuskegee Airmen and the Stonewall Uprising for gay rights were inaccessible. The Tuskegee site was back online a short time later but the others remained down Friday evening.
- The State Department removed the X gender marker and replaced “gender” with “sex” on online consular forms. A page with tips for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex travelers was altered. It's now titled “LGBTravelers” instead of “LGBTQIA+ Travelers."
- The U.S. Census Bureau's homepagewas down. Links to reports and topic pages outlining details about the gender identity, sexual orientation and characteristics of the nation’s population returned errors. A message on Friday afternoon for one topic page titled “Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity” read, “The area of census.gov that you are trying to access is currently unavailable due to maintenance.” Another page titled “Mental Health Struggles Higher Among LGBT Adults Than Non-LGBT Adults in All Age Groups” also was unavailable. Archives of bothpagesshow they were accessible within the past week.
- Much of the U.S. Census Bureau website, which houses the nation's vast repository of demographic data, returned error messages.
- A Bureau of Prisons web page originally titled “Inmate Gender” was relabeled “Inmate Sex” on Friday. A breakdown of transgender inmates in federal prisons was no longer included.
- Much public health information was taken down from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website: contraception guidance; a fact sheet about HIV and transgender people; lessons on building supportive school environments for transgender and nonbinary kids; details about National Transgender HIV Testing Day; a set of government surveys showing transgender students suffering higher rates of depression, drug use, bullying and other problems.
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Asked by reporters Friday about reports that government websites were being shut down to eliminate mentions of diversity, equity and inclusion, Trump and said he didn’t know anything about it but that he’d endorse such a move.
“I don’t know. That doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me,” Trump said, adding that he campaigned promising to stamp out such initiatives.
Trump's executive order, signed on his first day back in office, calls for the federal government to define sex as only male or female and for that to be reflected on official documents such as passports and policies such as federal prison assignments.
