Trump bans CDC from using 7 words, including transgender and fetus

Policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were told of a list of forbidden words in budget documents at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget, according to an analyst who took part in the 90-minute briefing, the Washington Post reported last night.

The forbidden words are “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”

The news kicked off a Twitter storm of alarm, derision and ridicule.

Congressman Ted Lieu (D-CA) wrote:

Others were in the “outrage” category:

This isn’t the first time the administration has tried to make concepts or people that they oppose invisible. Immediately after the inauguration on January 20, a new White House website went up without any mention of LGBT+ issues. The Obama White House had a whole section on LGBT+ achievements of its administration.

For more info on that, see LGBTQ entries disappear from WhiteHouse.gov and some other government websites.

“The question of how to address such issues as sexual orientation, gender identity and abortion rights — all of which received significant visibility under the Obama administration — has surfaced repeatedly in federal agencies since President Trump took office. Several key departments — including Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, as well as Justice, Education, and Housing and Urban Development — have changed some federal policies and how they collect government information about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans,” according to the Post article.

“News of the ban on certain words hasn’t yet spread to the broader group of scientists at the CDC, but it’s likely to provoke a backlash, the analyst said. ‘Our subject matter experts will not lay down quietly — this hasn’t trickled down to them yet.’”

Copyright The Gayly – December 16, 2017 @ 8:10 a.m. CST.