'Page not found': Trump administration scrubs webpages of gender reference

Federal government websites mentioning gender and diversity began disappearing Friday – replaced by the phrase "page not found."

The broad-based blackout some feared didn't transpire, but the entire Census.gov website hosting all U.S. Census Bureau data went missing Friday after 6 p.m. ET for roughly an hour; after which some Census pages continued to say "access is currently unavailable due to maintenance."

"It's a major blow to government transparency," said Faith Williams, policy director at the nonprofit watchdog Project on Government Oversight. "It's extremely troubling to see census.gov go dark, and we fear it is a part of a wider disruption of government websites and data."

Among the first webpages to come down were in the health sphere.

The Centers for Disease Control page containing data on health disparities among LGBTQ youth and other information supportive of gender diversity came up empty midday Friday. It redirected visitors to the agency's archive, but many of the links to archived information were also dead, including a topic page titled "Transgender and Gender Diverse Persons."

A National Institutes of Health webpage on sex, gender and drug use showed a two-word message: "Access denied."

Other CDC pages and datasets on topics including COVID-19 and AIDS were still functional, but some AIDS-related pages were missing, including the "Let's Stop HIV Together" page. The CDC didn't immediately respond to a request for information Friday.

But the downed websites could be found across the federal bureaucracy, from the National Park Service's page dedicated to the Stonewall National Monument, honoring a site known as the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ rights movement; to Department of Education and State Department pages directed at members of the LGBTQ community; and the Environmental Protection Agency's dropdown menu on climate change.

Trump was asked in the Oval Office whether federal agencies were going to shut down their websites Friday to scrub them of material about diversity, equity and inclusion.

“I don’t know. It doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me,” Trump told reporters. “If they want to scrub the websites, that’s alright with me.”

Enacting Trump's social agenda

The takedowns appeared to respond to memos earlier this week and last week from the Office of Personnel Management directing federal agencies to carry out President Donald Trump's executive orders and reshape the government's messaging on issues from gender identity to workforce diversity.

The memos ordered agencies to dismantle websites and social media accounts that "inculcate or promote gender ideology" or that refer to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility Offices – by 5 p.m. ET Friday.

Office of Personnel Management communications director McLaurine Pinover issued the following statement Friday evening:

"OPM sent guidance to agencies to remove gender ideology-related content from their websites by 5 pm today as part of the efforts to defend women and uphold the truth of biological sex against the radical claims of gender activists. This may have been misinterpreted to mean we would shut down government websites who weren’t able to comply but that is not the plan for continuing to implement this important effort."

More: Trump order recognizes only two sexes. Advocates call it 'cruel,' 'lawless.'

The Education Department got a head start and had removed webpages ahead of the Friday deadline. Information about specific types of federally designated universities, including tribal colleges and colleges with the greatest number of Hispanic students, were archived. A resource page for LGBTQ students came up empty with a message, "This page has been moved or deleted."

A State Department "know before you go" page previously directed at LGBTQ travelers on Friday was rewritten to address to "LGB" travelers, removing the reference to people who identify as transgender or queer.

Two topics that were in the drop down bar at the top of the Environmental Protection Agency's website disappeared at some point in January – climate change and environmental justice. However, pages on climate change and environmental justice could still be accessed through search late Friday.

The Office of Personnel Management directives operationalize an executive order Trump signed his first day titled "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government."

In the order, Trump wrote that "the erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system" – a claim advocates and parents of gender diverse children and adults strongly refute.

It's typical for presidential administrations to rebuild agency websites to reflect their priorities, though in the past, the content from prior administrations could still be found online in archived form.

"This is more than just the norm," Williams said. "It’s very normal to see websites change over. This is much bigger than that because the ask is so huge. Agencies are being asked to scrub every reference to gender."

The White House and NIH did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bart Jansen, Zachary Schermele and Joshuan Rivera contributed.

This story has been updated to add new information.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Government webpages disappear as agencies scrub out gender, DEI