Deleted words from official documents: LGBTQ, diversity, inclusion, transgender
26 February 2025. Related: Treatment access, Treatment advocacy.
Simon Collins, HIV i-Base
Recents posts to networks of global community activists have reported new directives to delete the following words from official documents related to US-funded health programmes.
“In compliance with the US President’s Executive Order titled Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, see below the list of words that should be deleted/replaced in your documentation, including your technical narratives, work plans, budgets, budget justifications, poster, registers and other IEC materials.”
| Word to edit | Action |
| Gender | Replace with sex |
| Gender-based violence (GBV) | Replace with violence against men and women |
| Sexual gender-based violence (sGBV) | Replace with sexual violence |
| LGBTQ | Delete |
| Diversity | Delete |
| Inclusivity/inclusion | Delete |
| Transgender | Delete |
This especially emphasises any material with a CDC or PEPFAR logo, including electronic documents.
The directive included US-funded programmes in Kenya, Malawi and Zimbabwe but is likely to be for all PEPFAR countries.
Deleted documents from US government websites
Thousands of documents were also either deleted or edited from official US government websites.
Thanks to TheBody.com for the following examples.
For example, the HIV surveillance pages published by the US CDC now include the following boxed text:
“Per a court order, HHS is required to restore this website as of 11:59PM ET, February 11, 2025. Any information on this page promoting gender ideology is extremely inaccurate and disconnected from the immutable biological reality that there are two sexes, male and female. The Trump Administration rejects gender ideology and condemns the harms it causes to children, by promoting their chemical and surgical mutilation, and to women, by depriving them of their dignity, safety, well-being, and opportunities. This page does not reflect biological reality and therefore the Administration and this Department rejects it.”
The section of the main HSS HIV treatment guidelines on the management of transgender people has been deleted and now links to a broken link page.
The website for the International PEPFAR programe is still offline.
The article at TheBody.com also includes many more.
Reference
The White House. Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the Federal Government. (20 January 2025).
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/