A Wednesday morning protest taking aim at the banning of seven words from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) budget requests attracted LGBTQ, reproductive health and justice, and scientific advocates, among others. Standing outside of the Department of Health and Human Services, activists each held a sign featuring one of the banned words. Their hashtags: #CDC7Words, #ScienceNotSilence.
The protest was organized by the National LGBTQ Task Force and the National Partnership for Women & Families. Senior CDC officials informed staff last week that they cannot use “transgender,” “fetus,” “science-based,” “evidence-based,” “diversity,” “vulnerable,” or “entitlement” in budget documents. “Science-based” and “evidence-based” are to be replaced by phrases such as the “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes.”
The right was quick to come up with caveats. The least damning explanation anyone has offered, however, is that CDC officials anticipated their budget would suffer if they continued to use these words.
The Times confirmed some details of the report with several officials, although a few suggested that the proposal was not so much a ban on words but recommendations to avoid some language to ease the path toward budget approval by Republicans.
A former federal official, who asked not to be named, called the move unprecedented.
“It’s absurd and Orwellian, it’s stupid and Orwellian, but they are not saying to not use the words in reports or articles or scientific publications or anything else the C.D.C. does,” the former official said. “They’re saying not to use it in your request for money because it will hurt you. It’s not about censoring what C.D.C. can say to the American public. It’s about a budget strategy to get funded.”
Such an explanation is hardly exonerating; at best, it’s an admission that Republicans have so politicized the least political of the federal government’s duties—that to public health—that scientists worry they can’t do their job without playing ball. At most, the ban is a direct reflection of a command from the administration.
“I don’t know exactly who said what in the meeting, but I have to assume this came from H.H.S. people, because they’re the ones who have to make the budget,” the former official said. ‘I’ve also heard that some of the words might have been a little misconstrued. “‘Science-based’ and ‘evidence-based’ might not have been considered as unusable as the others.”
“These seven words really center our work,” observed Valerie Ploumpis, policy director for Equality California, the largest statewide LGBT advocacy organization in the United States. The ban on these words is more than a political statement. Its implications aren’t just resonating with those professionally committed to LGBT and women’s health advocacy. Ted Eytan, for example, came to the protest in his personal capacity, armed with a professional quality camera.
"For LGBTQ people, and especially transgender people, censorship is personal,” said Meghan Maury of the LGBTQ National Task Force. “When the CDC says that ‘transgender’ is a banned word, they are saying they want to wipe away mention of our community."
Wednesday’s protest follows the Human Rights Campaign’s Tuesday night feat of projecting the banned words onto the Trump International Hotel.
This latest action is consistent with the administration’s attacks on women and LGBT Americans—as well as science broadly. The upside? Protests have become routine, robust, and creative in Washington.