The Building and Dismantling of the U.S. Government Gender Portfolio — and What We Do Now

The DevastationOn January 20, 2025, the Donald Trump administration issued three executive orders that significantly impacted equality work and U.S. foreign assistance.One order claimed to defend women from "gender ideology extremism" and restore "biological truth to the federal government."A second sought to end "radical and wasteful" government DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) programs and "preferencing."And a third proposed to reevaluate and realign U.S. foreign aid, asserting that the U.S. "foreign aid industry and bureaucracy" were "not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values." 1 Among other impacts, this system-wide disruption triggered the dismantling of work on gender and democracy and women, peace, and security (WPS) across the White House, the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). 2 In line with a long history of anti-feminist foreign policy by Republican administrations since Ronald Reagan (Angevine 2025), Trump also reinstated the Mexico City Policy, better known as the "Global Gag Rule," on January 24, 2025. 3This rule prevents U.S. foreign assistance from being used, directly or