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| - In February 2025, as U.S. President Donald Trump called for an end to diversity, equity and inclusion practices in the federal workforce, reports claimed the Department of Homeland Security — led by Secretary Kristi Noem — had removed bans on conducting intelligence activities on people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Such reports shared copies of the original DHS report which showed a rule that originally prohibited personnel from conducting intelligence activities based only on a person's "race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, country of birth, nationality, or disability." The latest such report appeared to have removed the references to sexual orientation and gender identity.
The claim is correct in that the current DHS report that details such a rule no longer states that it applies to sexual orientation or gender identity. We looked at an older copy of the report as well as the latest copy and found that the reference had been omitted. We reached out to DHS to learn more about this, but have not received a response as of this writing. As such, we rate this claim as true.
The claim emerged from the language used in the policy manual for DHS' Office of Intelligence and Analysis. In an archived copy of the policy manual from Jan. 19, 2025, a rule states that Open Source Intelligence Collection personnel cannot conduct intelligence activities on individuals or groups on the basis of their race, religion and more. This copy of the manual explicitly includes "gender identity" and "sexual orientation":
(iii) OSIC Personnel are prohibited from engaging in intelligence activities based solely on an individual's or group's race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, country of birth, nationality, or disability. The use of these characteristics is permitted only in combination with other information, and only where (1) intended and reasonably believed to support one or more of I&A's national or departmental missions and (2) narrowly focused in support of that mission (or those missions).
The current manual (as viewed on March 3, 2025, and archived here) omits references to sexual orientation and gender identity entirely. It also replaced the word "gender" with "sex." The rule now states intelligence activities cannot be conducted on an individual or group solely on the basis of their "race, ethnicity, sex, religion, country of birth, nationality, or disability."
(iii) OSIC Personnel are prohibited from engaging in intelligence activities based solely on an individual's or group's race, ethnicity, sex, religion, country of birth, nationality, or disability. The use of these characteristics is permitted only in combination with other information, and only where (1) intended and reasonably believed to support one or more of I&A's national or departmental missions and (2) narrowly focused in support of that mission (or those missions).
The change has led to speculation in numerous reports that intelligence activities, including surveillance, can now be carried out on people based solely on their sexual orientation and gender identity. We have, however, been unable to determine why this change took place. If we hear back from the DHS, we will update this story with more information.
The "intelligence activities" conducted by the office are identified thusly in the policy manual:
In service of the broader mandates described above, I&A engages in intelligence activities encompassing the entire intelligence cycle, setting intelligence requirements; collecting (overtly or through publicly available sources) information responsive to those requirements for serialization in intelligence reports; and analyzing, producing, and disseminating analytic products.
However, according to a 2024 analysis from the Brennan Center for Justice, the DHS' Office of Intelligence and Analysis has a long history of carrying out civil rights abuses in the name of gathering intelligence. It has surveilled racial justice demonstrators and interviewed people in prison without sufficient constitutional protections, as well as targeting journalists.
The above change occured after a Trump administration executive order in January 2025 that called for "the termination of all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and 'diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility' (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government, under whatever name they appear."
This is not the only instance of the Trump administration's policies adversely impacting members of the LGBTQ+ community. Trump's executive orders in his second term have aimed to restrict people from changing gender markers on their passports, to expand the ban on transgender service members, to reinstate the global gag rule that blocks funding for reproductive health care, and to direct federal agencies to prevent gender-affirming care for people under 19. Additionally, according to some reports, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission stopped investigating claims alleging discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
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