Trump Deletes Govt HIV Resources & Fires Diversity Govt Staff

Only days into the second Trump presidency, and his administration has deleted almost all LGBTQIA+ and HIV content and resources from government websites, and placed all federal employees working in diversity offices on administrative leave.

Queer media advocacy organisation GLAAD has confirmed that LGBTQIA+ focused content and HIV-related resources have been removed from key federal agency websites, including the White House website, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of State, and Department of Labor.

The pages were catalogued by GLAAD before Trump’s inauguration in anticipation that the Republican would delete, archive, or otherwise alter the content.

“President Trump claims to be a strong proponent of freedom of speech, yet he is clearly committed to censorship of any information containing or related to LGBTQ Americans and issues that we face,” GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said.

“Today’s action proves the Trump administration’s goal of making it as difficult as possible for LGBTQ Americans to find federal resources or otherwise see ourselves reflected under his presidency.”

Trump made a similar move when he first took office in 2017, with then president of the Human Rights Campaign Chad Griffin accusing the administration of “systematically scrubbing the progress made for LGBTQ people from official websites”.

Mass firing of diversity employees, offices shuttered

Agency heads received a memo from the Acting Office of Personnel Management on Tuesday in which they were ordered to shutter diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) offices and place employees working on DEIA contracts on administrative leave, effective immediately.

The executive order behind these moves, titled “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing”, was signed by President Trump on his first day back in office, and outlines the elimination of DEIA offices, positions, plans, actions, programs or initiatives within 60 days.

The Biden administration established such initiatives in the federal workforce in 2021 in an attempt to bring marginalised people into the workplace, including groups like pregnant people and veterans.

The memo sent to agency heads said the programs “divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in shameful discrimination”.

Federal agencies now have until January 31 to submit plans for mass layoffs of DEIA employees. They are also obligated to investigate whether contracts or job descriptions were altered to hide DEIA connections after Trump’s election win on November 5.

“We are aware of efforts by some in government to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language,”  the memo stated.

The cuts come under the the new Department of Government Efficiency, led by billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who said DEI was “just another word for racism” in January last year.

Civil rights and advocacy groups will likely challenge the cuts.