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The internet seemed to be in disbelief after President Donald Trump ordered the removal of genders being mentioned on government websites. This comes after the administration stated that they wished to scrub off “gender ideology.” While the government agencies took to making the changes on the websites on Friday, many of them went dark.
As per The Guardian, the Office of Personnel Management, directed government agencies to terminate grants and contracts and disband employee groups that were using the term “gender” instead of “sex.”
The Federal Aviation Administration and the Census Bureau websites went dark on Friday, January 31, according to The Guardian. The website reportedly read.
“The page you’re looking for was not found.”
The Bureau of Prisons went on to rename “inmate gender” to “inmate sex" as well. They also do not include a separate list of trans inmates.
On January 31, the US State Department employees were also demanded to scrub off their gender pronouns from their email signatures.
Netizens have since taken to Instagram to react to the same with one netizen commenting:
There are approximately 77,840 staffers at the state department as per the news publication. It remains unknown as to how many among them use gender identifiers in their email signatures. Meanwhile, some other reactions read:
Similar orders to have pronouns removed were also given to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Energy. Comments from users continued to pour in.
Donald Trump has not publicly addressed the aforementioned developments, at the time of writing this article. Meanwhile, some other reactions read:
Secretary of State orders freezing of passport applications with X sex markers in Trump's administration
On January 23, The Guardian exclusively obtained an internal cable that ordered the freezing of all passport applications with 'X' sex markers and changes made to gender identity on existing passports.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio had reportedly instructed the department staff to carry out the executive order signed off by Donald Trump. The reported email read:
“The policy of the United States is that an individual’s sex is not changeable.”
The order also included that “sex, and not gender, shall be used” in all official documents that include passports and consular reports of birth abroad.
This comes after Donald Trump signed off an executive order titled 'Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government' that mandates that government-issued documents must exclusively list the sex of the person as either “male or female.”
The state government began issuing passports with the X identification as a third gender back in April 2022. Although the passport is valid, there can be issues caused while renewing the same under the current administration.
The number of passports holding the 'X' identification remains unknown at the time of writing this article.
