USAID staff ordered to remove pronouns from email signatures by Friday

Remaining employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development were ordered to remove “gender-identifying pronouns” from their email signature blocks by 5. p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Friday. This is to comply with U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order, which he framed as “Defending Women,” and signed on his first day in office. It stated that the government will only recognize “sex” as “an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female” and requires federal agencies to end anything related to “gender ideology.” “USAID has reviewed all agency programs, contracts, and grants that promote gender ideology, and we continue to remove non-compliant related outward-facing media,” wrote the agency’s Office of the Administrator to employees in an email to staff this week, which Devex obtained. “Your cooperation is essential as we navigate these changes together.” Last month, the USAID Office of the Administrator emailed staff that “gender ideology has overshadowed and diluted our ability to advocate clearly and effectively for women and girls, obscuring biological realities and undermining the protections women and girls need.” It wrote that USAID is committed to ensuring its programs, policies, and messaging “reflect biological truth.” That included a review to eliminate USAID-funded initiatives, offices, and staff positions the government considers promoting or reflecting “gender ideology.” Staff from other U.S. federal agencies, such as the State Department, Labor Department, and the Department of Veterans Affairs, previously received the same order to remove their personal pronouns from email signatures. Recently, a Texas state employee was fired for refusing to remove his pronouns from his work email. As the Guardian reported, billionaire Elon Musk, who serves as Trump’s lead adviser in drastically shrinking the size of the federal government, which has included mass layoffs of federal employees, responded to the news on his social media platform, X, with two fire emojis.