Last Wednesday the Trump administration directed all federal agencies to remove any references to “gender ideology” on websites and email accounts in a two-page memo. Staff had until 5 p.m. Friday to comply with an executive order Donald Trump issued his first day in office on “defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government.”
Hours before the Friday deadline, employees with the Environmental Protection Agency were shocked to see that their pronouns had already been removed from their email signatures.
Morale was already at an all-time low, said Marie Owens Powell, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, Council 238, a union that represents more than 8,000 EPA employees.
“It’s probably the worst I’ve ever seen,” Powell said Friday at a briefing held by the nonprofit Environmental Protection Network (EPN), which formed at the start of the first Trump administration to safeguard the EPA’s scientific integrity.
In 33 years with the EPA, she said, “I’ve never seen anything like this. I’ve never seen literally, every day, folks are afraid to turn their computers on. They don’t know what message will be coming out next.”
As an example, she said, “My phone is blowing up. All of the sudden, people just realized our pronouns are gone.”
People’s pronouns were removed from their email signatures sometime Thursday, said Powell, who worked for years as an underground storage tank inspector with EPA Region 3. “I know personally my signature block was Marie Owens Powell, she, her, hers. It is gone now, and I did not remove it.”
Powell suspects it was a computer update of some sort that scrubbed the pronouns but isn’t sure.
Staff at EPA who work on diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives have been put on administrative leave and have been asked to turn each other in for violating the administration’s orders. Pages that once offered guidance for maintaining a workplace free of discrimination and providing equal opportunity for all employees and job applicants, including transgender, nonbinary and gender nonconforming individuals, are gone.
The administration’s actions are distracting and breeding chaos, fear and mistrust, said Powell.
EPN has more than 600 former EPA staff and political appointees who worked through many transitions of power and new administrations, said Michelle Roos, the nonprofit’s executive director.
“I don’t know one that would say that what’s happening right now is normal,” Roos said. “This is the most chaotic and vindictive transition in the history of the Environmental Protection Agency.”
The Wednesday memo, issued by acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, Charles Ezell, ordered federal agencies to take a dozen steps designed to “end federal funding of gender ideology.” The only action that related to emails directed agency heads to turn off features that prompt users to enter their pronouns.
“It’s telling but not surprising that Trump’s EPA would stoke divisive and cruel culture fights inside the agency rather than focus on protecting our air, water and climate,” Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, said in an email.
“Allegations of improperly accessing emails are precisely why we’ve sued the Trump administration for records of what DOGE is doing within the federal workforce and elsewhere,” Hartl said, referring to the Department of Government Efficiency, run by Elon Musk. DOGE is not an official government agency authorized by law.
The EPA press office did not respond to requests for comment.
“This is the most chaotic and vindictive transition in the history of the Environmental Protection Agency.”
— Michelle Roos, Environmental Protection Network
“People are completely on edge, which is totally understandable,” Powell told Inside Climate News. “You don’t know what is next. How many shoes can actually drop?”
Just today, she said, the remote platform employees use for telework went down, hours before the OPM’s Ezell issued guidance on implementing his earlier return to in-person work order.
“Our contract is still in place that allows for remote work and telework, except in certain circumstances,” Powell said. “We have all gotten the email saying you have to go back to the office, but the agreement still exists.”
The attack on DEI is disheartening on many fronts, Powell told Inside Climate News. “We worked so hard and I am so very proud of the collective bargaining agreement we entered into in June of 2024 and there is a DEIA article in that contract,” she said, referring to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.
“I don’t see the harm. If people want to put their pronouns, let them put their pronouns,” she said. “What’s next?”
What’s most distressing, Powell said, is the “fork in the road” email that promised eight months of pay and benefits for those who resigned. She called the email a ploy to trick federal employees into quitting.
“For most of our employees, this is not just a job for them,” said Powell. “This is a calling. They’re true environmentalists. This is so much bigger than just the job.”
She hopes that passion will help her members hold the line. “I am hoping that that is the strength that we have, that will push back against this administration,” she said. It’s a strength, she said, the administration underestimated.
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Liza Gross is a reporter for Inside Climate News based in Northern California. She is the author of The Science Writers’ Investigative Reporting Handbook and a contributor to The Science Writers’ Handbook, both funded by National Association of Science Writers’ Peggy Girshman Idea Grants. She has long covered science, conservation, agriculture, public and environmental health and justice with a focus on the misuse of science for private gain. Prior to joining ICN, she worked as a part-time magazine editor for the open-access journal PLOS Biology, a reporter for the Food & Environment Reporting Network and produced freelance stories for numerous national outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Discover and Mother Jones. Her work has won awards from the Association of Health Care Journalists, American Society of Journalists and Authors, Society of Professional Journalists NorCal and Association of Food Journalists.
