Ever since Donald Trump started serving America as the President for the second time, he has made no efforts to hide his agenda of completely eliminating LGBTQ rights in every possible sector. He, along with his administration, has been reinforcing the conservative belief of the existence of only two genders, male and female.
Trump, since the time he has set foot in his office, has signed multiple executive orders aimed at making the lives of trans and other LGBTQ people a living nightmare. He has also ordered federal employees to drop pronouns from their email signatures, and his orders have made several government sites with important health data take down the information.
Now, in a recent bizarre update, Reuters reported that the Food and Drug Administration scientists were instructed not to use certain words, like “disabled,” “woman,” and “elderly.”
Two FDA scientists, who did not want to reveal their names for obvious reasons, told Reuters that a file titled “Prohibited Words” contained the list of words that they were not supposed to use and that file had been circulating in the department since last week.
The professional also mentioned, “I don’t understand why we can’t use a word like ‘woman.’ “The words on the list would make it almost impossible to do our jobs.”
This clearly shows the frustration of the employees of an organization where more than 1000 employees were fired because of Trump’s ongoing DEA purge, in which Elon Musk is a huge supporting figure who also actively participates in various decisions.
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The list, which came without any explanation behind the ban, contained words like “underrepresented,” “understudied,” “identity,”“underserved,” “sex,” “women,” “self-assessed,” “promote,” “elderly,” “ideology,” “disabled,” “diverse,” “elderly,” “special populations.”
However, a Spokesperson from the White House had said to Reuters that the list was not accurate and might have been misinterpreted because of the executive order that Trump had passed against “gender ideology.”
As per Reuters, the Spokesperson also mentioned that while the words have not been banned, the employees of the FDA are expected not to use words like “inter,” “gender,” “identity,” “trans,” “equity,” “transgender,” “diversity,” “intersex,” to comply with Trump’s order.
On the other hand, a spokesperson from the FDA informed Reuters that they did not have any officially banned words listed at the agency. However, this person refused to comment on the list of words that the White House had asked not to be used.
The Trump administration directed CDC & FDA to place a notice harshly condemning “gender ideology” on agency webpages that a federal judge ordered be restored online this week. w/ @bylenasun https://t.co/K5nkhJKeo7
— Rachel Roubein (@rachel_roubein) February 14, 2025
Despite there being no official proof of such a list, it won’t be surprising if, going forward, the Trump administration will pop out a list like this. With their consistent efforts of DEI purge, Trump and Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are doing everything they can to make the federal departments less inclusive.
Such decisions are especially concerning for people of the LGBTQ community because it would gradually get even more difficult for these people to get medical help as this government is quite tenacious in ensuring that their very existence is denied.
No official statement has yet been made from the side of the Trump administration regarding the file “Prohibited Words” or the words they contain.
