Disappearing websites, data among the chaos as Trump's anti-trans censorship begins
Particularly concerning information coming out of the Census Bureau and CDC.
An anti-transgender, government-wide, totalitarian form of censorship is being implemented right now on the orders of an acting federal appointee with the effects of erasing significant amounts of information from the public less than two weeks after President Donald Trump retook the presidency.
A Wednesday order from Chuck Ezell, the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, that the entire federal government scrub any mention of what the Trump administration derisively calls “gender ideology“ or even the word “gender” by 5 p.m. Friday is leading to censorship and chaos across the government, as understaffed agencies and departments seek to take action based on orders of questionable legality and with only the vaguest of implementation guidance.
On Friday afternoon, an email sent to State Department employees showed the scope of Ezell’s directive. In it, Ambassador Tibor Nagy, currently acting as the undersecretary for management at the State Department, noted the steps the department was taking to comply — and ordering all employees to “remove any gender identifying pronouns from email signature blocks by 5:00 PM today.“
On top of the information erasure, agencies are also to end programs and grants that advance “gender ideology” by then and “[e]nsure that intimate spaces designated for women, girls, or females (or for men, boys, or males) are designated by biological sex and not gender identity” — in other words, institute an anti-trans bathroom ban.
Among the most stark reports provided to Law Dork about what is happening, information-wise, are those involving the Census Bureau and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A Census employee told Law Dork, “[S]everal of our ongoing surveys have been ordered by their sponsoring agencies to be modified to remove any reference to the word gender and any gender identity related questions.”
The National Crime Victimization Survey — conducted for the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics — and National Health Interview Survey — conducted for the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics — have already been altered, per the employee.
“Both surveys will have removed those references starting with their data collection cycle in February,” the Census employee explained, adding that similar changes are being made to the consumer expenditure surveys conducted for the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics but that those “will likely go out in March.“
Federal employees from across the government also tell Law Dork that affinity groups have been disbanded, staff have been assigned to scrub websites of newly verboten language, and that queer employees are operating in fear.
“We are an office of mostly women, minority and queer employees who have been scrubbing DEIA references from internal sites,” a State Department employee told Law Dork. “It has been a rough week.“
[Update, 7:45 p.m.: Shortly after 5 p.m., the scope of the problem hit outside of government, as websites went down — or were altered to exclude transgender people specifically.
One site that got immediate attention was this State Department website …
… which has become:
The immediate, stark censorship was apparent across the federal government.]
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What is happening?
Trump’s government-wide anti-transgender efforts, which began with an anti-trans executive order defining “sex” on January 20, led to Ezells’ Wednesday memorandum. In it, he orders departments and agencies to take 11 steps by 5 p.m. Friday as a result of what he called the “Defending Women” executive order. Among the most time-consuming and censoring are:
Review all agency programs, contracts, and grants, and terminate any that
promote or inculcate gender ideology.
Take down all outward facing media (websites, social media accounts, etc.) that
inculcate or promote gender ideology.
Review all agency forms that require entry of an individual’s sex and ensure that
all list male or female only, and not gender identity. Remove requests for
“gender” and substitute requests for “sex.”
Ensure that all applicable agency policies and documents, including forms, use
the term “sex” and not “gender.
As detailed in the January 20 executive order, the Trump administration’s scare phrase of “gender ideology” essentially means that the administration does not acknowledge the existence of transgender or nonbinary people:
It is dehumanizing erasure, and Ezell’s memorandum is attempting to make that a literal erasure across the federal government’s websites, documents, and data collection efforts.
What’s more, it appears to be going on — at least at the OPM guidance-level — without reference to any other legal obligations regarding document retention or data collection.
Further still, it is being done in conjunction with efforts to take similar action to oppose what the administration refers to — again, derisively — as “DEI” (diversity, equity, inclusion) or “DEIA” (plus accessibility), but what are either civil rights protections directly or programs to help achieve the goals of those protections.
Communicating compliance
Along with the erasure efforts, every federal employee is supposed to get an email from their agency by 5 p.m. Friday “announcing that the agency will be complying with Defending Women and this guidance” — announcements that Law Dork can report have begun:
[Update, 8:15 p.m.: Law Dork was told that the Justice Department’s email came in a little past 5:00 p.m. Notably, it adds a caveat it “will comply with [the executive order] in accordance with Federal law and any collective bargaining obligations.”
This is notable because it is coming from Justice Department officials who are most keenly aware of the possibility of court challenges to actions and — with that in mind — because this was the only agency that I have seen (thus far) to have added such a caveat to its compliance email.]
Data down
Due to the amount of data involved and the timeline involved in accomplishing it, a CDC employee told Law Dork that an immediate result could be at least temporary disappearance of data portals altogether.
The employee employee explained that “trying to change all instances of the word ‘gender’ to ‘sex’ in data portals, even portals where the only ‘gender’ options are male and female, will lead to disruptions. Because of how some data portals are developed, we cannot do a simple find and replace.”
The employee continued:
Instead we need our operations and maintenance contractors to make this change, address any errors in dependent code (i.e. spots where the code was looking for "gender" which is now "sex"), and test the new code for stability or subtle bugs. Because many operating divisions share 1 O&M contractor, those folks are being flooded with requests. Because they can't fulfill all those requests by 5pm Friday, some number of data portals will become unavailable, opting to go offline rather than run afoul of the OPM memo.
The CDC employee summed up the effect of this: “[A]n entirely politically motivated change aimed at otherizing Trans people will make it temporarily harder for Americans to see data about their nation's health.”
[Update, 8:00 p.m: As of 8:00 p.m., the result was horrific, as this site …
… was gone entirely:
I should note, in a possibility that the CDC employee was correct that this would have a distinct effect on data, that the CDC’s non-data, general HIV information page was still up on Friday night:
I will, however, keep an eye on such things.]
The fallout is wide, reaches outside of government, and is immediate.
To give just one example, the order is already negatively affecting the care veterans will be able to get, as an employee with Veterans Affairs explained.
“Our LGBTQ open office hour meetings that typically meet monthly were cancelled today,” the employee told Law Dork. “These are for consultation about available services for our LBGTQ veterans.”
For now, those federal employees not involved in data changes, website-scrubbing or other implementation efforts wait.
As one trans federal employee told Law Dork: ”Management has been silent, but everyone is scared, and I worry anytime I use the bathroom that I'm going to be targeted. … I just want to do my job and not have to worry about just existing at work.”
Malicious compliance. Stop using all pronouns in emails and tell them that's what you were told to do.
Crime stats that don't look at gender definitely sounds like protecting women...