CDC scrubs research databases referencing sexual orientation and gender identity

Websites on HPV vaccinations, data on high schoolers’ health habits, information on programs to end violence against women and girls: all began disappearing from government websites this week, as agencies scrambled to comply with President Trump’s executive order against “gender ideology.”

Federal agencies and departments were given a deadline of 5 p.m. EDT Friday to implement an order Trump signed within hours of taking office Jan. 20, mandating that the U.S. government recognize only two sexes that are “not changeable.”

A memo sent Wednesday to agency heads detailed a laundry list of tasks required to comply with the order. The list included a sweeping directive to withdraw all relevant “documents, directives, orders, regulations, materials, forms, communications, statements, and plans,” along with far more specific requests to change “gender” to “sex” on government forms, disable any email prompts that ask users for their pronouns and cancel any employee resource groups that “inculcate or promote gender ideology.”

Agencies were also ordered to take down any “outward facing media” that could be interpreted as promoting a view of gender no longer in line with U.S. government policy.

By Friday afternoon, search results for “gender” on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website returned a graveyard of dead links, many of which had been active days or even hours earlier.

A page on healthcare treatment guidelines for transgender people was gone. So was a page on the value of school gay-straight alliance clubs. Information on HIV and sexually transmitted diseases disappeared.

The website of the Department for Health and Human Services scrubbed pages on gender-affirming care and LGBTQ+ rights.

Several research databases also disappeared, sparking alarm among researchers. These included the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, which uses biennial surveys to track tobacco and drug use, sexual activity, dietary choices and other things that could undermine the health of high school students.

CDC representatives didn’t respond to requests for comment Friday. In his order, Trump said such actions were intended to “defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies.”

Dr. Tina Tan, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and Dr. Colleen Kelley, chair of the HIV Medicine Assn., denounced the move in a joint statement.

The removal of health resources “is deeply concerning and creates a dangerous gap in scientific information and data to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks,” they wrote.

Researchers began sharing warnings on social media several days ago, urging members of the community to make copies of federal health data before the information was removed from the CDC website.

Some raced to back up the CDC’s social vulnerability index data, which researchers use to identify communities that would likely need extra help to recover from a natural disaster like a hurricane or earthquake.

“If the country continues on this path, the SVI for every single county and census tract is going to be maxed out,” climatologist Becky Bollinger wrote on Bluesky.

Many people noted that the study data being taken down were gathered with federal funds and that the information should be accessible to taxpayers. Researchers could go to court or file requests under the Freedom of Information Act, but that will take time and resources.

Some called it a modern-day equivalent to burning books. One person likened the move to “the torching of the library at Alexandria” by Julius Caesar.

Others fretted that the action was a sign that the Trump administration would stop maintaining the disappeared databases going forward. Even if they are revived in the future, a four-year gap would undermine their research value.

Visitors to government webpages noted other disruptions that didn’t immediately appear connected to the gender executive order. The homepage for the Census Bureau was offline Friday for a time, and the Department of Agriculture was ordered to remove references to climate change, Politico reported.