Trump Team Drops LGBT References, HIV-Related Content From US Government Websites

The Donald Trump administration has scrubbed references to LGBT health and information about certain vaccines from government websites. Several federal web pages talking about gender and diversity started disappearing on Friday and showed the phrase "page not found."

The Census.gov website, which hosts all IS Census Bureau data, went missing entirely after 6 PM ET for nearly an hour, while a few Census pages continued to say "access is currently unavailable due to maintenance," USA Today reported.

Among the first web pages to become unavailable was in the health sector. The page on Centers for Disease Control (CDC) website, containing data regarding health disparities among LGBTQ youth as well as information supportive of gender diversity, appeared empty and redirected visitors to the agency's archive.

Also, several links to the archived information remained unavailable, which included the topic page, titled "Transgender and Gender Diverse Persons."

Those trying to navigate through the webpage on sex, gender and drug use on the National Institutes of Health website were shown the message: "access denied."

While CDC pages and datasets on topics such as COVID-19 and AIDS were functioning, users couldn't access a few AIDS-related pages like the "Let's Stop HIV Together" page. 

Other web pages that could not be viewed included one on the National Park Service website dedicated to the Stonewall National Monument, which honours a site known to be the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ rights movement. 

The Department of Education and State Department pages regarding members of the LGBTQ community and the Environmental Protection Agency's dropdown menu on climate change were also down.

Commenting on the Trump administration's latest move, Faith Williams, policy director at nonprofit watchdog Project on Government Oversight, told USA Today it was a "major blow to government transparency".

"It's extremely troubling to see census.gov go dark, and we fear it is a part of a wider disruption of government websites and data," Williams added.

Earlier, Trump was asked whether federal agencies plan to shut websites to remove material that talks about diversity, equity and inclusion.

"I don't know. It doesn't sound like a bad idea to me. If they want to scrub the websites, that's alright with me," Trump said at the Oval Office.