The Blubber

Federal employees have reportedly been instructed to stop including pronouns in their email signatures, marking one of President Donald Trump’s latest moves to eliminate gender ideology and diversity, equity, and inclusion policies from the federal government.

According to ABC News, a memo issued to employees set a deadline of 5 p.m. EST on Friday to comply with the new directive, which applies to all federal communications, not just emails.

The memo, sent across multiple federal agencies, follows executive orders signed by Trump last week. One of these orders, issued on his first day in office, defined male and female as the only two sexes and signaled that such changes were forthcoming.

The order states:

"Each agency and all Federal employees shall enforce laws governing sex-based rights, protections, opportunities, and accommodations to protect men and women as biologically distinct sexes. Each agency should therefore give the terms ‘sex,’ ‘male,’ ‘female,’ ‘men,’ ‘women,’ ‘boys,’ and ‘girls’ the meanings set forth in section 2 of this order when interpreting or applying statutes, regulations, or guidance and in all other official agency business, documents, and communications.

Agencies shall remove all statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications, or other internal and external messages that promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology, and shall cease issuing such statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications, or other messages."

Under the Biden administration, federal employees increasingly included pronouns in their email signatures as a way to express support for progressive gender ideology. The practice had become widespread across government agencies before the new directive was issued.