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Employees of were ordered over the weekend to retract any articles they might have under consideration for publication in medical or scientific journals until a Trump appointee can scour them for forbidden words, terms, and acronyms.
The offending terms include "gender," "transgender," "pregnant person," "LGBT," "non-binary," "assigned male at birth," "assigned female at birth," and several others.
This came after a purge of the CDC website on Friday that included webpages and datasets involving topics like HIV, the LGBTQ community, and youth health as they rushed to comply with the and another . The fallout of these moves has ricocheted across the country, particularly at agencies that exist to support people who are part of those communities.
Many of the CDC web pages and datasets had to do with HIV and AIDS, including:
For those with HIV and AIDS in San Antonio, this blackout of sites critical to maintaining their good health is chilling, according to CEO Cherise Rohr-Allegrini.
鈥淢y clients and our staff are terrified,鈥� Rohr-Allegrini said.
People go to the AIDS Foundation for HIV and STD testing, supplies, medical care, and counseling, Rohr-Allegrini explained. 鈥淥ur clients have said, you know, what's going to happen? Are we not going to have our medications? So everybody is terrified.鈥�
Rohr-Allegrini said it鈥檚 not just losing access to credible research and information that will make things more difficult for SAAF clients. The purge is sending a clear message to a vulnerable population.
鈥淭he message is that we are going to deny that transgender or LGBTQ people exist,鈥� Rohr-Allegrini said, 鈥渁nd that's not acceptable.鈥�
And the Trump Administration's attempt to remove references to transgender people from all government documents leaves shrapnel everywhere, Rohr-Allegrini said. She pointed to a CDC web page on that was removed until the term 鈥減regnant people鈥� could be changed to 鈥減regnant women,鈥� in adherence with the Trump policy. These actions leave everyone without access to critical information about their health, she said.
The fallout goes beyond the LGBTQ community. A page tracking was scrubbed in accordance with Trump鈥檚 .
Friday鈥檚 flurry of activity appears to have come in response to a memo from the , according to tech news blog . The memo was entitled, "Initial Guidance Regarding President Trump's Executive Order Defending Women."
鈥淚 don't need to be defended,鈥� Rohr-Allegrini said. 鈥淚 need to be supported, and I'm supported by joining with my trans sisters in understanding the risk that we all face.鈥�
鈥淚t's so intentional and so harmful,鈥� she continued, 鈥渂ecause this is a population that has suffered so much and continues to suffer, and removing access to health care in any form just creates further trauma for folks that have been through trauma for most of their lives.鈥�
鈥淭his is harmful to them, and it's not protecting me," Rohr-Allegrini concluded. "It's not protecting my daughter, and it's not protecting any women that I know."
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