The United States is a highly diverse country, and we have the data to prove it. But recent political events have data custodians and users across the country asking an important question—if the federal government is backing away from its historical role as a leader in advancing data quality and data democracy, what does it mean for the future of representation and evidence-based policy development? The answer has wide-ranging implications. ... these advances are now at risk.... In late January, federal agencies began to eliminate any references to transgender or gender expansive people from their public-facing websites. On January 31, 2025, federal datasets that included measures of gender or gender identity began to be removed from federal websites.5 These included datasets such as the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, and the Household Pulse Survey. This mass disappearance of data that was previously publicly available was only halted when a federal judge issued an injunction ordering the data and websites to be restored to their previous condition while legal challenges to the executive order worked their way through the court system.
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