On Friday, January 31, Americans seeking information from federal websites faced unexpected challenges as numerous government pages, including those featuring public health data and the U.
S. Census Bureau's site, went offline.
This development followed a directive from President Donald Trump, issued on January 29, which limits government agencies from disseminating media content, such as websites and social media, that "promote gender ideology."
According to Straight Arrow News, this move is part of a broader series of memos and executive orders signed by President Trump, targeting initiatives related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, commonly referred to as DEI or DEIA. The president has argued that such policies infringe upon civil rights laws. Consequently, the directive has curtailed the scope of information that government bodies, including public health agencies, can communicate or share with the public.
As a result, several documents concerning LGBTQ+ individuals and non-white Americans have been removed. Among these is a document from the Department of Health and Human Services outlining LGBTQ+ rights in healthcare. While the memo primarily addresses gender and diversity, its implementation has inadvertently led to the removal of seemingly unrelated information from public access.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has taken down interactive platforms that tracked HIV, hepatitis, and sexually transmitted diseases, as well as a tool that allowed individuals to assess their community's risk level in the event of a natural disaster. Additionally, the CDC's long-standing program monitoring health-related behaviors among high school students, which has been operational for 35 years, has also been affected. The latest survey from this program had included questions about transgender identification, with 3% of students identifying as transgender and another 2% expressing uncertainty.
There is currently no specified timeline for the restoration of these websites and the associated information. However, the memo requires agencies to submit their plans for implementing and fully adhering to its guidelines by noon Eastern Time on Friday, February 7.
For those seeking access to the removed documents, the nonprofit Internet Archive offers a solution. Users can retrieve information by entering a website's inactive link into the search box at web.archive.org.
In a related development, government employees were also impacted by an executive order signed on President Trump's first day in office. This order mandated that all agency employees, including those at the CDC and the Department of Transportation, remove any preferred pronouns from their email signatures if they had previously chosen to include them.
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