Some Federal Employees Have Been Told to Drop Pronouns From Their Email Signatures
"In my decade-plus years at CDC I've never been told what I can and can't put in my email signature."
Published Jan. 31 2025, 1:12 p.m. ET
The hits keep coming as President Donald Trump continues to wage a disturbing war against anything he perceives to be connected to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). After suggesting that the January 2025 D.C. plane crash was the result of DEI hiring practices, President Trump continued to focus on federal employees.
According to ABC News, multiple federal agencies instructed employees to remove pronouns from their email signatures. In internal memos obtained by the outlet, employees were told this had to be done by 5:00 p.m. EST on Friday, Jan. 31, 2025.
Which federal employees were told to remove pronouns from their email signatures?
Jason Bonander, the CDC's Chief Information Officer, said in a message, "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." The CDC is of course the Center for Disease Control and the ATSDR is the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, which determines public health effects of environmental exposures to natural and manmade hazardous substances.
Federal employees with the Department of Transportation also received a similar memo which directed them to "remove pronouns from everything from government grant applications to email signatures across the department." An order sent to employees at the Department of Energy stated that this was in alignment with President Trump's desire to remove DEI language in "Federal discourse, communications and publications."
The memo also included instructions on how a person can edit their email signature. An unidentified career civil servant told ABC News that, "In my decade-plus years at CDC I've never been told what I can and can't put in my email signature." The Office of Personnel Management also issued a memo telling agencies to, "Review agency email systems such as Outlook and turn off features that prompt users for their pronouns."