On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order stating that the federal government would no longer recognize transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people. As a result, questions about gender identity—and some questions about sexual orientation—were removed from federal surveys, data sets, reports, and public websites.
Since January 20, 2025, approximately 360 federal data collections have removed at least one sexual orientation or gender identity (SOGI) measure, according to new research from the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law.
Following the President’s executive order, measures of gender identity accounted for the vast majority of removals. Of the 360 removals, 338 removed the option for people to indicate their gender identity. However, 60 data collections also removed sexual orientation data elements, even though the executive order did not require it.
“Federal data on sexual orientation and gender identity are essential for understanding LGBTQ populations in the United States,” said lead author Lauren Bouton, Policy Fellow and Research Analyst at the Williams Institute. “These data allow us to identify disparities in health, economics, and exposure to violence among a group that’s been shown to be disproportionately at risk of these outcomes. Only then can we begin to address those realities with solutions such as more effective programming and the allocation of resources.”
SOGI measures were removed from a wide range of federal data collections, including research and program monitoring tools, administrative surveys, and large national surveys, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Rather than using the formal notice-and-comment process that requires publication in the Federal Register, most removals (83%) were made through non-substantive change requests submitted to OMB.
“Reliable data collection is fundamental to how the federal government identifies and responds to community needs,” said co-author Elana Redfield, Federal Policy Director at the Williams Institute. “Eliminating SOGI measures weakens the government’s ability to track disparities and document and prevent discrimination. The full impact will become clearer over time as existing data becomes outdated and new data is no longer collected.”