In the wake of President Donald Trump’s second inauguration this past January 20, the U.S. federal government has undertaken a sweeping removal of LGBTQ+ content from its websites, signaling a significant policy shift that has drawn widespread criticism from civil rights organizations and public health experts.
Within the first 24 hours of Trump’s swearing-in, the president moved to sign Executive Order 14168, titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” This directive mandates that federal agencies recognize only two sexes—male and female—as determined at birth, effectively disregarding the existence of transgender and non-binary identities.
Subsequently, the Office of Personnel Management issued a memo directing all federal agencies to eliminate “gender ideology” from their websites, contracts, and communications by January 31. This led to the removal of terms such as “gender identity,” “transgender,” and “LGBTQ+” from numerous federal platforms.
According to the Williams Institute at UCLA, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBS) were removed. In addition, the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey (HPS) data and documentation were deleted, Census data became inaccessible, and data related to tracking HIV/AIDS in the U.S. and globally were no longer available. Not only that, questions about sexual orientation and gender identity have been removed from some federal surveys going forward.
The National Institutes of Health’s Office for Sexual & Gender Minority Research has also seen its web presence eliminated, further limiting access to critical health information for LGBTQ+ communities.
Public health experts warn that these changes could have dire consequences. The Infectious Diseases Society of America emphasized that access to information on HIV and LGBTQ+ health is crucial for disease prevention and treatment efforts.
GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis released a statement in the first weeks of Trump’s administration, sounding the alarm on the blatant censorship the executive branch is promoting.
“President Trump claims to be a strong proponent of freedom of speech, yet he is clearly committed to censorship of any information containing or related to LGBTQ Americans and issues that we face,” she said. “This action proves the Trump administration’s goal of making it as difficult as possible for LGBTQ Americans to find federal resources or otherwise see ourselves reflected under his presidency. Sadly, for him, our community is more visible than ever; and this pathetic attempt to diminish and remove us will again prove unsuccessful.”
Beyond health agencies, the State Department has removed the option to select “X” as a gender marker on passport applications and has instructed employees to eliminate gender-specific pronouns from email signatures. But wait, there’s more.
The National Park Service has altered content related to LGBTQ+ history, notably removing references to transgender individuals from the Stonewall National Monument’s website. Trans and gender-nonconforming folks such as Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and Stormé DeLarverie were among those present on June 28, 1969, when police raided the Stonewall Inn — resulting in one of the most pivotal moments in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights.
Without Johnson, Rivera, DeLarverie and other trans community members, we wouldn’t be where we are today. To get rid of the very mention of their identity from the memorial is a blatant attempt to rewrite history and erase the existence of a group of people who were often on the frontlines in the fight for equality and justice.
“Erasing letters or web pages does not change the history or the contributions of our transgender community members at Stonewall or anywhere else. History was made here and civil rights were earned because of Stonewall,” said Timothy Leonard, the Northeast program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association.
What’s concerning about this trend of removing trans narratives is it erases the true history of the United States. Queer and trans-identifying people have time and time again proven to be integral to the history of our nation.
During the Civil War, trans soldiers fought for the Union — military records show Melvin Bean, Samuel Blalock, John Burns, Albert D.J. Cashier, Lyons Wakeman and Frank Thompson fought on American battlefields. Cashier’s story is one of the most cited when talking about trans soldiers in the Civil War.
According to most researchers, Cashier — originally named Jennie Hodgers and born in 1843 — enlisted in the Union Army at 19 years old. Serving for a full three-year term, he fought in more than 40 battles during the Civil War. After the war, Cashier continued to live as a man in a small Illinois town, where he exercised rights typically denied to women at the time, including voting and receiving a military pension.
He never married and lived alone in a modest one-room home. Cashier’s assigned sex at birth remained unknown until 1913, when, due to dementia, he was institutionalized. While under care, hospital staff discovered he had been assigned female at birth during a bath. He was subsequently forced to wear women’s clothing for the first time since youth. Tragically, he later died after tripping over his skirt and falling.
Cashier was buried in 1915 in full uniform with military honours and given an official Grand Army of the Republic funerary service. His former comrades, although initially surprised by the news of his gender assigned at birth, rallied in support of their friend and protested his treatment at the hospital.
Cashier’s story, among others, is targeted by the administration to be erased from our history books. Why would Trump and his administration want to remove any record of trans Americans’ contribution to our country’s history? The answer can be found in previous instances of the erasure of certain groups from archived records or monuments, because the Trump Administration isn’t the first to attempt to erase entire populations from the history books.
Architectural historian Despina Stratigakos was researching Adolf Hitler’s building plans for Nazi-occupied Europe, and while searching for building designs and blueprints, Stratigakos found a master plan of destruction that he described as “no historian was ever meant to see.”
He came across a copy of a directive from Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel dated Aug. 12, 1940.
“The document conveyed Hitler’s order to Germany’s Army High Command to destroy World War I memorials in occupied Belgium and France. The monuments, in Hitler’s eyes, served to defame the army and perpetuate hatred against the nation. Their eradication was thus necessary to restore Germany’s reputation and protect it for posterity,” Stratigakos wrote. “Here was clear proof that Hitler had directly intervened to transform not only the physical landscape of Europe, but the landscape of memory itself.”
In fact, one of Hitler’s motivations for his takeover of Europe was simple: revenge on the Treaty of Versailles — the “stab in the back” he believed led to Imperial Germany’s humiliation. This “humiliation,” as Stratigakos put it, resulted in the fostered resentment among right-wing Germans, who accused the German signatories on the treaty of betraying their own nation.
We are seeing a narrative from the White House parallel to the very narratives Nazi German leaders used to justify their campaign against the “enemy within.” For Nazi Germany, the “enemies” were Jewish Europeans, Black Europeans, civilians (non-Jewish) accused of disobedience, resistance, or partisan activity and more.
The President of the United States has been quoted calling anyone who opposes his policies the “enemy from within,” occasionally name-dropping specific political opponents he wishes to target.
“I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within,” Trump said. He added: “We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the big — and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”
Throughout his 2024 campaign, Trump targeted immigrants with an even greater intensity. He referred to undocumented immigrants as “animals” and insisted “they’re not humans.” Additionally, the 47th president falsely accused Haitian immigrants of “destroying” Springfield, Ohio residents’ “way of life,” and “eating the pets of the people that live there.”
Throughout his reign in Germany, Hitler portrayed Jews as aiming to “poison” the “pure” blood of the Aryan race. To support his insane conspiracy theories, he claimed Jews were “raping” Aryan females and “importing” Black people into Germany.
If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and waddles like a duck, it’s a damn duck. The fact Trump uses the exact same strategies as one of the most disgusting, anti-freedom leaders and one of the biggest war criminals in the history of the world should raise alarm bells for all Americans. The dehumanization of LGBTQ+ folks, immigrants, people of color and other marginalized folks has historically been used to justify systemic discrimination and, in some cases, the systemic murders of entire populations.
History repeats itself, and if we’re not proactive in stopping that cycle, this time in American history will be the next travesty in the history books.