Many federal government websites went dark after Trump took office. Medical and scientific professionals were concerned when websites containing research were shut down. One reason for the lights out was the Trump administration’s determination to remove any research that contained language that referred to diversity, equity or inclusion and any research that related to sexuality, especially references to transgender or bisexual or any LGBT issues. The Trump administration has stated that there are only two genders–male and female–and that’s it.

The news was reported by The Washington Post:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention removed or edited references to transgender people, gender identity and equity from its website Friday, racing to meet a late-afternoon deadline imposed by the federal Office of Personnel Management.

Whole pages about HIV testing for transgender people, guidelines for use of HIV medication and information on supporting LGBTQ+ youth health were no longer available late Friday. The page that lists vaccines recommended by the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee was also no longer available. The vaccine to protect against mpox virus is recommended for groups including transgender, nonbinary or gender-diverse people.

By Saturday, the page of vaccine-specific recommendations was back online, with no mention of the mpox vaccine.

The blog Inside Medicine reported on the pall of censorship by the feds across the scientific community. Its report included the words that triggered the DEI censors.

In the order, CDC researchers were instructed to remove references to or mentions of a list of forbidden terms: “Gender, transgender, pregnant person, pregnant people, LGBT, transsexual, non-binary, nonbinary, assigned male at birth, assigned female at birth, biologically male, biologically female,” according to an email sent to CDC employees (see below).”

A screenshot of a CDC email shared with Inside Medicine of a list of terms that must be removed from any CDC-authored manuscript being seriously considered or “in press” (but not yet online or in print) at any medical or scientific journal.

An expansion of an emerging censorship regime at the CDC. 

The policy goes beyond the previously reported pause of the CDC’s own publications, including Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), which has seen two issues go unreleased since January 16, marking the first publication gap of any kind in approximately 60 years. Emerging infectious Diseases and Preventing Chronic Disease, the CDC’s other major publications, also remain under lock and key, but have not yet been affected because they are monthly releases and both were released as scheduled in January, prior to President Trump’s inauguration. The policy also goes beyond the general communications gag order that already prevents any CDC scientist from submitting any new scientific findings to the public.

The National Science Foundation was directed to screen papers submitted for funding; it uses a list of words to flag papers that might offend the new administration.Being flagged means that the research needs a closer review to be sure that the topic is inoffensive.

Here is the NSF list:

Judd Legum and Rebecca Crosby of the blog “Popular Information” reported on censorship at the National Secutity Agency.

They wrote:

A memo distributed by NSA leadership to its staff says that on February 10, all NSA websites and internal network pages that contain banned words will be deleted. This is the list of 27 banned words distributed to NSA staff:

Anti-Racism
Racism
Allyship
Bias
DEI
Diversity
Diverse
Confirmation Bias
Equity
Equitableness
Feminism
Gender
Gender Identity
Inclusion
Inclusive
All-Inclusive
Inclusivity
Injustice
Intersectionality
Prejudice
Privilege
Racial Identity
Sexuality
Stereotypes
Pronouns
Transgender
Equality

The memo acknowledges that the list includes many terms that are used by the NSA in contexts that have nothing to do with DEI. For example, the term “privilege” is used by the NSA in the context of “privilege escalation.” In the intelligence world, privilege escalation refers to “techniques that adversaries use to gain higher-level permissions on a system or network.”