This week at Unbreaking, January 22
This week, we’re launching our new Archives & History timeline, which tracks the many ways in which the Trump administration is exerting control over official histories and narratives. We also have a quick update from our Transgender Healthcare team.
Introducing the Archives & History page
Our Archives & Histories timeline tracks the Trump administration’s purges, deletions, book bannings, and other efforts to reshape the official narrative of the United States. The many individual erasures are disturbing, but the broader story we’re seeing is a far-reaching (if often ineptly executed) attempt to exert ideological control over which people the story of America celebrates and which ones it excludes.
In the process of purging references to diversity, equity, and inclusion, the administration has used AI and keyword searches to scrub the stories of Americans who built and fought for this country from government and military websites. Only some of these have been even partially restored. They’ve banned hundreds of books and lessons at schools serving military families and forbade the recognition of Black History Month and Women’s History Month in the armed forces.
The administration has also fired the National Archivist and instructed the National Park Service to remove books and other gift-shop merchandise that “inappropriately disparages Americans past or living.” It has forced the Smithsonian Institution’s more than 20 museums and research centers — many of the US’s most respected cultural institutions — into an intensive review process directed by Vice President JD Vance. It has even initiated an ideological review of the National Zoo.
The government’s interference is not limited to historical information, either. As part of a campaign to eliminate recognition and support for transgender and nonbinary people, the administration has banned the use of “X” gender markers on passports, urged sports officials to strip awards and honors from trans athletes, deleted references to trans and queer people on the Stonewall National Monument website, and banned any official acknowledgment of the existence of trans and nonbinary identities by federal agencies. The CDC deleted nearly two dozen web pages, most focused on LGBTQ+ health issues and several of the rest dealing with “health equity” (another forbidden idea).
The Department of Justice has also removed many of its online resources from public access. These include a database on the rioters who attacked police and took over the Capitol on January 6, 2021; a federal law enforcement misconduct tracker; and a National Institute of Justice study reporting on deadly attacks by far-right domestic terrorists.
Lawsuits, media attention, and public pressure have successfully reversed or reduced some of these efforts at erasure. We’re following the countermoves, too, along with community attempts to preserve the integrity of our histories and narratives. This week’s publication includes events recorded through September of 2025, and we’ll be back in two weeks with a fresh set of entries to bring the timeline up to date.
Are you an archivist or historian (or an ardent fan of either) who would like to help document and publicize this issue or any of the others we track? Here’s how to get involved.
Transgender Healthcare update
The Trans Healthcare team added 5 new event entries to our timeline. More hospitals have preemptively suspended gender-affirming care for trans youth due to pressure from the federal government. On the bright side, a federal judge blocked a DOJ subpoena seeking private health information about transgender hospital patients.
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