Using the Freedom of Information Act, 404 Media has obtained several memos that government agencies were required to create by President Trump in order to comply with his “Defending Women” executive order. The memos explain exactly how different agencies are seeking to purge the notion that trans people exist.
Many of the changes laid out in the memos had been previously reported by 404 Media and other news outlets. But the fact that we got anything back from FOIA at all indicates that it will likely be possible to get information about what the administration is doing by using public records requests. FOIA may indeed be a way to bring transparency and some semblance of accountability to an administration that has gutted the federal workforce and has attempted to evade public records laws, especially when those FOIAs are filed with non-DOGE agencies. In the first month of Trump’s administration, we have filed dozens of requests across many different agencies, including DOGE. We also led a training about how to do this yourself, which you can watch here. We will continue to report on the documents that we get as we get them.
The Office of Personnel Management required all federal agencies to submit a memo to the email address “defendingwomen@opm.gov” on February 7 that included “a.) a complete list of actions taken in response to this guidance and Defending Women; and b.) any agency plans to fully comply with this guidance and Defending Women.” 404 Media has obtained these memos from both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Labor. Muckrock user Russel Neiss obtained memos from the American Battle Monuments Commission and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. 404 Media has pending requests with 24 other agencies.
The EPA’s memo was sent to the defendingwomen@opm.gov inbox but was also sent directly to Amanda Scales, a former HR executive for Elon Musk’s xAI company who is now chief of staff for the Office of Personnel Management, which functions more or less as the HR department for the federal government.
Both the EPA and Department of Labor memos have a series of bullet points that explain what the agencies did to comply with the executive order.
For the EPA, these included, for example: “Ensure that intimate spaces designated for women, girls, or females (or for men, boys, or males) are designated by biological sex and not gender identity,” and “Cancel any trainings that inculcate or promote gender ideology or have done so in the past.”
The Department of Labor, meanwhile, “Removed requests for ‘gender’ and substitute requests for ‘sex’ in agency forms,” and “Reviewed all agency programs, contracts, and grants, and identified for possible termination those that promote or inculcate gender ideology. Additionally, all references to the word ‘gender’ were modified ‘sex’; to ‘men’ or ‘women’; ‘males’ or ‘females’; or ‘boys’ or ‘girls’ as appropriate.”
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights “removed the ‘universal’ bathroom signs at headquarters,” and the American Battle Monuments Commission “revised its internal policies, documents, and forms to replace ‘gender’ with ‘sex.’”
We also obtained a mass email that the EPA sent to its employees instructing them to remove pronouns from their email signatures and informing them that “the agency prohibits Employee Resource Groups that promote unlawful DEIA initiatives.”
The full memos are available here:
- Department of Labor
- Environmental Protection Agency
- U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
- American Battle Monuments Commission
A federal judge has ruled that DOGE itself must release records under federal records laws, but the case is still being litigated.
