A landmark study on LGBTQ+ identities from 2016 has vanished from the National Park Service’s website following the removal of LGBTQ+ content across government agency websites.
The Washington Blade reports that the study was entitled “LGBTQ America: A Theme Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer History” and was commissioned by the National Park Service after they received a grant from the Gill Foundation to include LGBTQ+ historical information on their site in 2014.
The Washington Blade reportedly reached out to the NPS for comment and received a response that the agency is implementing Trump’s executive order: “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” Also during his first month in office, Trump issued directives to end all DEI initiatives across federal agencies and to remove DEI funding provided by the government to nonprofits,
President Donald Trump has long made his intentions of erasing trans people from American history clear, and since taking office, the Trump Administration has continued to impose policies ensuring trans lives will not be embraced or protected by federal agencies.
Already this month, more than 350 pages referencing LGBTQ+ people have been deleted for federal government websites. These have included HIV resources, LGBTQ+ statistics pages, and inclusive policy pages, according to Pink News. Most notably, the Stonewall National Monument page on the National Park Service site has recently been scrubbed of the word “trans.”
A spokesperson from GLAAD spoke out against the act saying “The Stonewall Uprising – a monumental moment in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights – would not have happened without the leadership of transgender and gender non-conforming people.”
The Director of OutHistory – a public history website for LGBTQ research – issued a statement responding to the removal of the study. “Our histories have been appropriated, censored, commodified, distorted, erased, falsified, marginalized, pathologized, rejected, silenced, and simplified.” He went on to say: “They think they can erase trans and queer people from history, remove trans women of color from the history of Stonewall, pretend that LGBTQ+ people did not exist, did not struggle, did not fight, did not suffer, did not survive, did not thrive. If they think any of this, they have never experienced or witnessed our perseverance, our rage, our resilience, our joy.”
