Public health data disappeared from websites, entire web pages went blank and employees erased pronouns from email signatures on Friday as federal agencies scrambled to comply with a directive tied to US President Donald Trump’s order rolling back protections for transgender people.
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The Office of Personnel Management directed agency heads to strip “gender ideology” from websites, contracts and emails in a memo sent on Wednesday, with changes ordered to be instituted by 5pm on 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.
Much public health information was taken down from the US Centres 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 non-binary children; 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.
Some pages appeared with the message: “The page you’re looking for was not found.”
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Trump signs series of executive orders on first day back in White House
Trump signs series of executive orders on first day back in White House
Disease experts said eliminating resources created dangerous gaps in scientific information. The Infectious Diseases Society of America, a medical association, issued a statement decrying the removal of information about HIV and people who are transgender. Access is “critical to efforts to end the HIV epidemic,” the organisation’s leaders said.
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