Pronouns Are Being Forcibly Removed From Government Email Signatures

Following a White House edict effectively banning federal employees from disclosing their personal pronouns in email signatures, sources within multiple federal agencies say pronouns are now being systemically blocked across multiple email clients and other software.

WIRED confirmed various automated efforts with employees at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the General Services Administration (GSA), the US Department of Agriculture, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The employees spoke to WIRED on condition of anonymity, citing fears of retaliation.

Multiple agency directors sent emails over the weekend telling staff that, due to President Donald Trump’s executive order, their offices would be removing the pronoun capability from Office 365. Employees were told they’d also need to remove pronouns from their email signatures in order to comply with the directive.

A staffer at USAID says the formal deactivation of their ability to list pronouns occurred last week, in response to executive orders defining sexes issued by President Trump on his first day in office. A GSA staffer says pronouns were wiped from employees’ email signatures after hours on Friday and were also no longer visible in Slack, the workplace messaging app. At the CDC, there used to be a section for employees to share their pronouns on their Teams profiles, another workplace app. That field no longer exists.

Reached for comment, the White House transferred WIRED to OPM communications director McLaurine Pinover, who pointed to January 29 memorandum ordering agencies to disable all features “that prompt users for their pronouns.”

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