Researchers say the US government tried to erase sexual orientation from
their findings
[March 22, 2025]
By CARLA K. JOHNSON
Two California researchers said Friday that a U.S. government health
publication instructed them to remove data on sexual orientation from a
scientific manuscript that had been accepted for publication.
The researchers also said they were told to remove the words “gender,”
“cisgender” and “equitable" from their paper, which looked at smoking
among rural young adults.
The reason given for the changes was to comply with an executive order
from President Donald Trump, researchers Tamar Antin and Rachelle
Annechino said in a blog post where they included screenshots of the
revisions.
Instead of complying, the researchers withdrew their paper from Public
Health Reports, the official journal of the U.S. Surgeon General and
U.S. Public Health Service.
On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order
directing government agencies to remove “gender ideology” from
publications. He has signed other orders targeting diversity, equity and
inclusion initiatives.
The researchers plan to publish their findings elsewhere, Antin told The
Associated Press. In the blog post, Antin and Annechino urged other
researchers to refrain from publishing in journals published by the
federal government to avoid political interference.
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 “In normal times, this would never
happen,” said Antin, director of the Center for Critical Public
Health, a California-based research group. “I have never been asked
to censor any articles for publication, nor, to my knowledge, have
any of my colleagues ever been asked to censor words, word choice,
or remove data from a publication in response to an executive order
from the White House. This is extremely unusual.”
Screenshots in the blog post show suggested
deletions of data in categories labeled “straight or heterosexual,”
“gay or lesbian,” “bisexual” and “unknown.” A note says: “Per the
Executive Order, we cannot include language surrounding gender.”
Understanding how smoking fits into the lives of rural young adults
of all genders and sexual orientations can help tailor more
effective public health messages, Antin said. And it is a
long-standing practice to include these demographic variables in
research.
Antin said censorship threatens scientific integrity and, in this
case, appears to violate the policy of the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services, which says that scientific findings should not
be “unduly suppressed, delayed, or altered for political purposes."
HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said the agency “is restoring science to
its golden standard to protect the integrity of science. All
manuscripts published in the Public Health Reports must comply with
President Trump’s Executive Orders.”
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