Federal employees at multiple agencies were ordered to remove pronouns from their email signatures by close of business Friday, according to ABC News.
Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Acting Director Charles Ezell sent a memo to department heads Wednesday offering “initial guidance” for complying with President Donald Trump’s executive order, which mandated the federal recognition of only two biological sexes. Among other directives, the memo ordered employees to “review agency email systems such as Outlook and turn off features that prompt users for their pronouns” by 5 p.m. Friday.
“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,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Chief Information Officer Jason Bonander wrote in an agency-wide email, according to ABC News. “Staff are being asked to alter signature blocks by 5.pm. ET today (Friday, January 31, 2025) to follow the revised policy.”
“In my decade-plus years at CDC I’ve never been told what I can and can’t put in my email signature,” an anonymous employee told the outlet.
Employees at the Department of Transportation (DOT) reportedly received a similar order Thursday.
Ezell also ordered agencies to terminate any program, contract or grant that “promote[s] or inculcate[s] gender ideology” and placed employees involved in such programs on paid leave “effective immediately.” The memo also ordered agencies to review all forms and documents and replace any mention of the word “gender” with “sex.”
The move comes after Trump issued a pair of day-one executive orders aimed at quashing “radical and wasteful” diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives within the federal government.
The orders mandated the removal of alternative sex classifications from government-issued identification and other forms, as well as ceasing DEI hiring practices and training programs. It also ordered federal prisons to remove biological men from women’s facilities.
Another internal memo reportedly included instructions for removing pronouns from employee email signatures. It is unclear if agency employees outside of the CDC and DOT received similar orders to change email signatures specifically.
The Daily Caller News Foundation reached out to several executive departments and agencies for comment but did not hear back by the time of publication.
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