VA: Youngkin officials quietly pull LGBTQ+ youth resources offline [View all]
The administration of Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) quietly took down LGBTQ+ youth resources from a state website after a conservative media outlet questioned the links, records show, building on a pattern of removals derided by public health employees who say their work is being politicized.
Within hours of an inquiry from the Daily Wire, a dozen resources, including a live-chat online support group for teens, were removed from the state health department website at the direction of a Cabinet-level agency, according to emails obtained under the state’s open records law.
The presence of the materials — and their subsequent disappearance on May 31 — generated two headlines and a flurry of online reaction from conservative readers of the outlet, co-founded by right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro. The decision elicited concern from department leaders who had not been consulted and began emailing their higher-ups asking why this had happened — again.
Youngkin’s administration has at least three times in the year and a half since he took office removed information from the website without consulting its own subject-matter experts, records show, stripping public health resources on abortions, sexual health and pregnancy among other issues as he remakes state policy after eight years of Democratic control.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/07/06/youngkin-lgbtq-resources-vdh/
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