Federal government workers at several agencies were ordered to remove pronouns from email signatures by the end of Friday, citing President Trump’s executive orders rolling back diversity initiatives.
The Department of Transportation, Department of Energy and Centers for Disease Control all sent similar instructions to employees telling them to remove their preferred pronouns from their official email signatures.
“Pronouns and any other information not permitted in the policy must be removed from …. employee signatures,” Jason Bonander, the CDC’s chief information officer, wrote in a mass email message to staff.
Bonander and other officials cited Trump’s executive orders rolling back diversity, equity and inclusion measures. Calling for the restoration of “biological truth,” the orders called for the removal of so-called DEI “language in Federal discourse, communications and publications.”
The emails included instructions for editing email signatures to assist tech-phobic workers.
It wasn’t immediately clear if other agencies across the federal government have also issued similar edicts.
A memo from the Office of Personnel Management also directed officials to review agency email systems and disable features that ask users to choose their pronouns.
Trump and his MAGA allies believe that allowing the display of pronouns amounts to an endorsement of a pro-LGBTQ agenda and umdermines the traditional belief that all people are either male or female.
People who include pronouns in their email signatures counter that they do so to inform others of how they want to be addressed or referred to.
Along with the war on pronouns, Trump last week barred transgender troops from serving in the military.
