Research about endometriosis, suicide risk removed for violating Trump administration’s prohibition against “gender ideology”
Doctors from Harvard Medical School today challenged the removal of their articles from the Patient Safety Network (PSNet), a government-run website for doctors and medical researchers to share information about medical errors, misdiagnoses, and patient outcomes. The papers were removed as part of a takedown of information that the government contends promotes “gender ideology,” including any articles containing certain prohibited terms, including “LGBTQ” and “trans[gender].”
The articles removed include “Endometriosis: A Common and Commonly Missed and Delayed Diagnosis,” co-authored by plaintiff Dr. Celeste Royce, which included a sentence about diagnosis in transgender and gender-nonconforming people, and “Multiple Missed Opportunities for Suicide Risk Assessment in Emergency and Primary Care Settings,” co-authored by plaintiff Dr. Gordon Schiff, which included a sentence about heightened risk in LGBTQ communities.
“Good doctors serve and advocate for their patients, whoever they are,” said Dr. Celeste Royce. “We cannot uphold an oath to Do No Harm if our training and research are politicized. This administration is putting a culture war above the rights of clinicians and the public’s need for accurate, adequate health information. The very foundations of medical research and trust in medicine are at risk if the government can pick and choose what kind of research gets halted or published.”
“This type of wholesale, non-evidence-based removal endangers everyone's safety,” said Dr. Gordon Schiff. “Censoring information about transgender people or anyone a politician does not like, who have documented increased risks of negative health outcomes, is antithetical to the very mission of public health. It also has a clear ripple effect on each and every patient, whose doctors are now unable to review unbiased information about how to better care for all.”
The researchers are represented by the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at Yale Law School, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the ACLU of Massachusetts.
“Here in Massachusetts, we deeply understand that academic research and knowledge-sharing is essential to our economy and for the health care of all people,” said Rachel Davidson, staff attorney at the ACLU of Massachusetts. “Our clients were given an impossible choice between removing their article from PSNet entirely or censoring parts of it. This is an intentional erasure of knowledge, an attack on the integrity of scientific research, and an affront to the public’s need for accurate, adequate health information.”
In January 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that requires federal agencies to remove all statements that “promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology.” The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) subsequently issued guidance directing all agencies to “[t]ake down all outward facing media (websites, social media accounts, etc.) that inculcate or promote gender ideology.” PSNet’s removal of articles based on blacklisted terms followed. PSNet is run by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), a sub-agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
“The takedown of these articles is nothing short of an assault on science,” said Scarlet Kim, senior staff attorney at the ACLU. “The First Amendment protects against the removal of our clients’ research solely because the government disagrees with its message. The government cannot suppress medical knowledge because it acknowledges the existence of transgender people. The Trump administration’s attempt to do so violates the First Amendment and flouts the very mandate of PSNet to improve patient safety.”
The suit argues that the government violated the First Amendment by imposing a viewpoint-based and unreasonable restriction on the doctors’ participation in a forum the government has opened to private speakers. It also argues that the government violated the Administrative Procedure Act, including by removing articles without a reasoned basis. OPM, AHRQ, and HHS are named in the suit.
“This is not a complicated case,” said Ben Menke, a third-year law student in the Yale Law School’s Media Freedom & Information Access Clinic. “Eight decades ago, Justice Robert Jackson observed that ‘Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.’ Nowhere is that more true than in the fields of science and medicine. The Trump administration’s rule barring doctors from even mentioning transgender individuals in patient safety literature is contrary to law, public safety, and common sense.”
The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
