After Trump Order, CDC Takes Down Websites About HIV, Gender Identity & Sexual Orientation

Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have taken down websites that contain information about HIV, gender identity and sexual orientation.

The agency took this step to adhere to the executive order signed by President Donald Trump on Jan. 20. The order was titled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism And Restoring Biological Truth To The Federal Government.”

“It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female,” Trump stated in the order. “These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”

In Section 2(f) of the order, the president mentioned that “‘gender ideology’ replaces the biological category of sex with an ever-shifting concept of self-assessed gender identity, permitting the false claim that males can identify as and thus become women and vice versa, and requiring all institutions of society to regard this false claim as true.”

“Gender ideology includes the idea that there is a vast spectrum of genders that are disconnected from one’s sex,” he added. “Gender ideology is internally inconsistent, in that it diminishes sex as an identifiable or useful category but nevertheless maintains that it is possible for a person to be born in the wrong sexed body.”

The CDC also obeyed a two-page memo issued by the Office of Personnel Management last week. 

This memo was sent to all heads and acting heads of departments and agencies outlining steps agencies needed to stop federal funding of gender ideology by 5:00 p.m. EST on Jan. 31.

“In light of Defending Women, each agency should take prompt actions to end all agency programs that use taxpayer money to promote or reflect gender ideology as defined in Section 2(f) of Defending Women,” the OPM mentioned in the memo.

As of Friday evening, several websites discussing topics of gender identity and sexual orientation had been taken down on the CDC website.

The agency did not say how long these websites would be down or how many might be affected by these changes.

Missing pages also include those with data on HIV in the U.S. overall, as well as sections with statistics on HIV in Hispanic/Latino people, women and by age, race and ethnicity.

Another website that was taken down offered contraception guidance and a fact sheet about HIV and transgender people. 

It also discussed lessons on building supportive school environments for transgender and nonbinary kids, as well as details regarding National Transgender HIV Testing Day. 

The website “Atlas Plus,” an interactive tool allowing users to analyze CDC data on HIV, STDs, TB and viral hepatitis, had also been removed.

Last week at the National Institutes of Health, a senior employee, Nate Brought, encouraged agency leaders to decline to implement the Trump administration’s guidance in an email to acting NIH Director Matthew Memoli and other top officials.

Brought, the director of the NIH executive office, stated that Trump’s orders ran contrary to years of NIH research and findings related to sexuality and gender.

“By complying with these orders, we will be denigrating the contributions made to the NIH mission by trans and intersex members of our staff and the contributions of trans and intersex citizens to our society,” he stated. “These policies will lead to mental health crises or worse for tens of thousands of Americans who contribute productively to our communities.”