Raft Of Government Websites Go Dark Or Remove Key Information About Diversity In Trump Purge

Information and data from numerous departments disappeared after a memo instructing federal employees to eliminate material related to "gender ideology" and other topics.

The Trump administration on Friday appeared to take down data and information from a variety of government websites, with a focus on information related to gender diversity, sexual health and climate change. In some cases entire websites disappeared. Others remained online, but had critical information missing.

The changes to government websites, as well as the blockages in the flow of grant money the administration announced earlier this week, appeared part of a whole-of-government effort to erase mention of topics deemed incompatible with President Donald Trump’s executive orders seeking to marginalize transgender people and pushing back against material purportedly associated with “DEIA,” or diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, initiatives.

Among the many affected websites Friday: The U.S. Census Bureau’s homepage, which appeared to be experiencing intermittent outages. Compared to archived versions, the National Institutes of Health Office on Research and Women’s Health appeared significantly pared down, as was the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Preventions’ Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, which returned an error when accessed Friday evening. NPR noted the program is “the nation’s largest monitoring program on health-related behaviors among high schoolers.”

The Bureau of Prisons website now displays only male and female populations. It used to include data on the number of trans people in custody, according to an archived version.

Numerous webpages for the CDC’s HIV prevention division, especially those about efforts to address health disparities among Black, Latino and transgender communities, were not online. By Friday, the main webpage for HIV, HIV data, details about “Ending the HIV Epidemic,” and information on PrEP, the preventive drug used to reduce the risk, were also not available. Other CDC sites about LGBTQ youth, including pages focused on risks of suicide among LGBTQ children, school safety, and health disparities were all still inaccessible as of Friday night.