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 rolling back protections for transgender people.
The Office of Personnel Management directed agency heads to strip 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 鈥済ender鈥� with 鈥渟ex鈥� on government forms.
Some parts of government websites appeared with the message 鈥淭he page you鈥檙e looking for was not found.鈥� Some pages disappeared and came back intermittently.
Asked by reporters Friday about reports that government websites were being shut down to eliminate mentions of diversity, equity and inclusion, Trump said he didn鈥檛 know anything about it but that he鈥檇 endorse such a move.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 know. That doesn鈥檛 sound like a bad idea to me,鈥� Trump said, adding that he campaigned promising to stamp out such initiatives.
Much public health information was taken down from 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; and a set of government surveys showing transgender students suffering higher rates of depression, drug use, bullying and other problems.
Eliminating health resources creates dangerous gaps in scientific information, disease experts said. 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 鈥渃ritical to efforts to end the HIV epidemic,鈥� the organization鈥檚 leaders said.
A Bureau of Prisons web page originally titled 鈥淚nmate Gender鈥� was relabeled 鈥淚nmate Sex鈥� on Friday. A breakdown of transgender inmates in federal prisons was no longer included.
The State Department on Friday removed the option to select 鈥淴鈥� as a gender on passport applications for nonbinary applicants. It also replaced the word 鈥済ender鈥� from the descriptor with the word 鈥渟ex.鈥� Nonetheless, the online passport application form was no longer available late Friday, linking simply to a message that said the system was 鈥渦ndergoing maintenance.鈥�
All State Department employees were ordered to remove gender-specific pronouns from their email signatures. The directive, from the acting head of the Bureau of Management, said this was required to comply with Trump鈥檚 executive orders and the department was also removing all references to 鈥済ender ideology鈥� from websites and internal documents.
鈥淎ll employees are required to remove any gender identifying pronouns from email signature blocks by 5:00 PM today,鈥� said the order from Tibor Nagy. 鈥淵our cooperation is essential as we navigate these changes together.鈥�
An official from the U.S. Agency for International Development said staffers were directed to flag the use of the word 鈥済ender鈥� in each of thousands of award contracts. Warnings against gender discrimination are standard language in every such contract. The official spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, under a Trump administration gag order prohibiting USAID staffers from speaking with people outside their agency.
The official said staffers fear that programs and jobs related to inclusion efforts, gender issues and issues specific to women are being singled out and possibly targeted under two Trump executive orders.
Some Census Bureau and National Park Service pages were also inaccessible or giving error messages.
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.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the military to immediately stop recognizing identity a day before the start of February's Black History Month, saying such events 鈥渆rode camaraderie and threaten mission execution.鈥�
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Mike Stobbe in New York and Amanda Seitz, Matthew Lee, Will Weissert and Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute鈥檚 Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Carla K. Johnson, The Associated Press
