Employees of the U.S. Department of State were asked to remove any preferred pronouns from email signatures on Friday, a leaked internal memo revealed.
The message from the State Department's Under Secretary for Management Tibor Nagy said the move was made to comply with President Donald Trump's recent executive order attacking the rights of transgender people.
“The Department of State is reviewing all agency programs, contracts and grants that promote or incubate gender ideology,” Nagy wrote to employees of the State Department. “All employees are required to remove any gender identifying pronouns from email signature blocks by 5pm today.”
The memo was shared online by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein. ABC News reported that similar memos went out to employees at the Departments of Transportation and Energy as well as the CDC.
Trump's executive order labeled itself as a broadside against "gender ideology," calling the idea that people born male could identify as women "false." The order required agencies to "remove all statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications, or other internal and external messages that promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology, and shall cease issuing such statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications or other messages."
Speaking with Salon earlier this month, the ACLU's Ian Thompson called Trump's efforts an attempt to eradicate trans people in the United States.
"All of this is part and parcel of the same overall effort: this anti-trans extremism among many on the right that is really coming from a desire to force transgender people out of our communities, out of our schools — out of public life entirely," Thompson shared.
Shares