Michelle Monier | Editor-in-Chief
February 13, 2025
During his first day back in office, former and now President Donald Trump signed 26 Executive Orders. Now, three weeks into his presidential term, President Trump has issued signatures on 55 Executive Orders.
Contextualizing these statistics, these numbers are more than any recent president has amassed in their first 100 days in office and is only surpassed by Presidents Truman and FDR (presidents during the Great Depression and WWII).
The orders span a litany of topics, from domestic issues to foreign policy, however, one in particular has stood out in the public and media in recent days. EO 14168, named “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” aims to “protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male” (EO14168, Federal Register). The stated goal of the order is to eradicate “gender ideology” and instate the idea that the United States only recognizes two sexes. The order outlines the means in which the government will establish these ideologies, which will be through government agencies tasked with giving only the terms “‘sex”, “male”, “female”, “men”, “women”, “boys” and “girls” … when interpreting or applying statutes, regulations, or guidance and in all other official agency business, documents, and communications” (EO14168, Federal Register).
These agencies will enforce the eradication of gender identity and gender ideology–both terms explicitly stated in the order–in a multitude of social, scientific, governmental, etc., factions. However, a major concern has arisen from the science community in particular, which has to censor scientific journals, research, and publications as a result of the EO. At the governmental level, the CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, asked its staff to review and withdraw any journals being considered for both internal or external publication containing certain words. These journals will therefore either not be published or have terms removed. The terms include the following: gender, transgender, pregnant person, pregnant people, LGBTQ, transsexual, non-binary, assigned male at birth, assigned female at birth, biologically male and biologically female. The major concern is that banning these words, which target certain persecuted groups, like women and the LGBTQ+ community, will deteriorate the scientific research and advancement regarding diseases that affect these groups: such as HIV and mpox for example, which more commonly affect members of the LGBTQ+ community in the United States.
The fallout of this Executive Order is also being felt by research organizations that are funded by the government. Scientists at UCSD recently spoke of the negative effects the Executive Orders have had on their research opportunities. Rebecca Fielding-Miller, a UCSD scientist, said in an interview with KPBS, “if I can’t say the word ‘women,’ I can’t tell you that an abortion ban is going to hurt women. If I can’t say race and ethnicity, I can’t tell you that Hispanic communities are experiencing this and that or that there’s less vaccination happening in African American communities.” UCSD scientists had to review and remove terms from their published scientific journals and findings, and their federal funding has been altered: including the loss of a $35 million USAID grant on reproductive health and nutrition. Ms. Stacey Finnerty, the AP Biology and Anatomy teacher at SCHS, said that she “feels like this type of censorship of scientific research after the fact causes bias, and if we censor the research done in the US then it won’t be accepted in the rest of the world. The US has done so much research and innovation to save human life and the environment, and that is jeopardized when you go back and change what has been accepted and beneficial. And ultimately, all quality and vetted research has to take in the subject’s personal identity in order to be valid.”
The Executive Orders are not only affecting large-scale organizations, as their research and findings affect the ordinary citizen. Censoring research and findings affects the information available to the whole population. As a student and soon-graduating senior, Emily Ohman said that the changes to science “pose an extreme issue because if we prevent the proper facts and data from being shared, we risk the prevalence of misinformation which can further prevent people from accessing the proper medical advice and treatments, or even prevent them from being aware of problems at all.”
Despite the quantity of repercussions already affecting the science community, it is still unknown the extent to which the Executive Orders will stunt the advancement of science and medicine for the targeted groups. With President Trump only 23 days into his presidential term, the science community could still be manipulated and altered in currently unknown ways.
EO 14168, Federal Register, Federal Register :: Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government
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