Federal agencies faced significant changes on Friday as they hurriedly worked to adhere to a directive connected to President Donald Trump’s initiative to roll back protections for transgender individuals. Public health data was removed from various websites, certain pages went blank, and employees were instructed to eliminate pronouns from their email signatures by the day’s end.
The Office of Personnel Management issued a memo to agency heads on Wednesday, mandating the removal of “gender ideology” from government communications and documents by 5 p.m. on Friday. This directive included disbanding employee resource groups, terminating related contracts and grants, and substituting the term “gender” with “sex” on all government forms.
As a result, some government websites displayed messages stating, “The page you’re looking for was not found,” while others experienced intermittent outages. When questioned by reporters about the shutdown of websites intended to eliminate references to diversity, equity, and inclusion, Trump claimed he was unaware of the situation but expressed support for the actions being taken. He stated, “I don’t know. That doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me,” reiterating his campaign promise to eliminate such initiatives.
In a notable removal, valuable public health guidance was taken down from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website. Information regarding contraception, HIV and transgender individuals, as well as resources supporting transgender and nonbinary children in schools, were among the content removed. Experts in disease control expressed concern regarding these omissions, emphasizing how such withdrawals can hinder public health efforts. The Infectious Diseases Society of America criticized the elimination of information vital to combating the HIV epidemic.
Additionally, the Bureau of Prisons rebranded its “Inmate Gender” webpage to “Inmate Sex,” removing data about transgender inmates in federal prisons. Furthermore, the State Department ceased offering the option to select “X” as a gender on passport applications for nonbinary individuals and replaced “gender” with “sex” in its documents.
An order from the Bureau of Management directed all State Department employees to eliminate gender-specific pronouns from their email signatures, reinforcing compliance with Trump’s executive orders. The order emphasized the necessity of cooperation in implementing these changes.
Sources within the U.S. Agency for International Development noted that personnel were instructed to identify occurrences of the term “gender” in thousands of award contracts, where standard language typically offers protections against gender discrimination. Concerned staff expressed their worries that initiatives and jobs focusing on inclusive efforts and gender-specific issues may become targets under the recent executive directives.
Numerous pages under the Census Bureau and the National Park Service were also either inaccessible or beset with error messages. Under an executive order signed on his first day back in office, Trump asserted that the federal government would define sex strictly as male or female, which will affect official documentation and policies, including those related to federal prison classifications.
Moreover, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the military to halt recognition of identity on the eve of February’s Black History Month, arguing that such acknowledgments undermine unit cohesion and mission effectiveness.
