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Some parts of government websites appeared with the message “The page you’re looking for was not found.� Some pages disappeared and came back intermittently.

Asked by reporters Friday about reports that government websites were being shut down to eliminate mentions of diversity, equity and inclusion, Trump said he didn’t know anything about it but that he’d endorse such a move.

“I don’t know. That doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me,� Trump said, adding that he campaigned promising to stamp out such initiatives.

Much public health information was taken down from website: contraception guidance; a fact sheet about HIV and transgender people; lessons on building supportive school environments for transgender and nonbinary kids; details about ºÃÉ«tv Transgender HIV Testing Day; and a set of government surveys showing transgender students suffering higher rates of depression, drug use, bullying and other problems.

Eliminating health resources creates dangerous gaps in scientific information, disease experts said. The Infectious Diseases Society of America, a medical association, issued a statement decrying the removal of information about HIV and people who are transgender. Access is “critical to efforts to end the HIV epidemic,� the organization’s leaders said.

A Bureau of Prisons web page originally titled “Inmate Gender� was relabeled “Inmate Sex� on Friday. A breakdown of transgender inmates in federal prisons was no longer included.

The State Department on Friday removed the option to select “X� as a gender on passport applications for nonbinary applicants. It also replaced the word “gender� from the descriptor with the word “sex.� Nonetheless, the online passport application form was no longer available late Friday, linking simply to a message that said the system was “undergoing maintenance.�

All State Department employees were ordered to remove gender-specific pronouns from their email signatures. The directive, from the acting head of the Bureau of Management, said this was required to comply with Trump’s executive orders and the department was also removing all references to “gender ideology� from websites and internal documents.

“All employees are required to remove any gender identifying pronouns from email signature blocks by 5:00 PM today,� said the order from Tibor Nagy. “Your cooperation is essential as we navigate these changes together.�

An official from the U.S. Agency for International Development said staffers were directed to flag the use of the word “gender� in each of thousands of award contracts. Warnings against gender discrimination are standard language in every such contract. The official spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, under a Trump administration gag order prohibiting USAID staffers from speaking with people outside their agency.

The official said staffers fear that programs and jobs related to inclusion efforts, gender issues and issues specific to women are being singled out and possibly targeted under two Trump executive orders.

Some Census Bureau and ºÃÉ«tv Park Service pages were also inaccessible or giving error messages.

Trump's executive order, signed on his first day back in office, calls for the federal government to define sex as only male or female and for that to be reflected on official documents such as passports and policies such as federal prison assignments.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the military to immediately stop recognizing identity a day before the start of February's Black History Month, saying such events “erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution.�

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Mike Stobbe in New York and Amanda Seitz, Matthew Lee, Will Weissert and Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.