Trump administration orders removal of pronouns from federal email signatures

During his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump made no secret of his plans to drive Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) practices and gender ideology out of the federal government, and so far, he has kept his promise to voters.

As ABC News reports, federal workers across a number of agencies were instructed on Friday to remove pronouns from their email signatures, a move in keeping with executive orders signed by Trump almost immediately after taking office last month.

Pronoun directive announced

Employees at the affected agencies were given until the close of business on Friday to make the necessary adjustments, according to ABC News.

Staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were told, “Pronouns and any other information not permitted in the policy must be removed from CDC/ATSDR employee signatures by 5. p.m. ET on Friday.”

Workers at the Department of Transportation were given similar guidance just before the weekend, as did employees at the Department of Energy.

In addition to email signatures, the pronoun removal directive extended to other forms of communication and documentation, including grant applications and the like.

Though millions of Trump voters likely hailed the development as a positive one, an affected federal worker lamented to ABC News, “In my decade-plus years at CDC I've never been told what can and can't put in my email signature.”

Promises made, promises kept

Though the Trump directive undoubtedly caused great consternation among some members of the administrative state, it was in keeping with the position outlined not just on the campaign trail, but also in the president's subsequent executive orders.

In an order titled, “Defending Woman from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” Trump stated that the government's policy is to “only recognize two sexes, male and female,” also eliminating the option for Americans to mark “other” or “X” on federal documents, as CBS News noted.

Trump's order stated, “Across the country, ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex have increasingly used legal and other socially coercive means to permit m en to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for woman, from women's domestic abuse shelters to women's workplace showers. This is wrong.”

It continued, “Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being. The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system.”

“Basing Federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself,” the order added, and it seems likely that email signatures are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the reforms still to come.