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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 href="http://web.archive.org/web/20230531005210/https:/www.vdh.virginia.gov/adolescent-health/resources-for-lgbtq-youth/" target=_blank>a dozen resources</a>, 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 <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/abortion/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">abortion</a>s, sexual health and pregnancy, among other issues, as he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/02/26/virginia-youngkin-critical-race-theory-general-assembly/" target=_blank>remakes </a>state policy after eight years of Democratic control.

Youngkin spokesperson Macaulay Porter framed the decision to remove LGBTQ+ youth resources as part of the governor’s emphasis on parents’ rights, a focus that helped him win in 2021 amid politically charged grievances over <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/02/26/virginia-youngkin-critical-race-theory-general-assembly/" target=_blank>critical race theory</a>, an academic framework for studying the history of systemic racism that teachers have said is not in Virginia public schools’ curriculum.

“In Virginia, the governor will always reaffirm a parent’s role in their child’s life. Children belong to their parents, not the state,” Porter said in a statement. “The governor supports providing resources that are age appropriate however the government should not facilitate anonymous conversations between adults and children without a parent’s approval. Sexualizing children against a parent’s wishes doesn’t belong on a taxpayer supported website.”

She added that state officials are “reviewing other elements of the page.”

Discussions about children’s sexuality and gender identity have been at the heart of a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/04/17/gop-state-legislatures-lgbtq-rights/" target=_blank>conservative backlash </a>to LGBTQ+ rights this year, with commentators and far-right agitators claiming that gay and transgender people are “grooming” children by, for example, holding story time while dressed in drag, or allowing children to discuss gender identity in school.

The Daily Wire inquiry was mainly focused on two programs: Queer Kid Stuff, a resource for children and families that launched its video series in 2016 with a piece exploring the question, “What Does Gay Mean?” and Q Chat Space, which offers live, facilitated chats for LGBTQ+ teenagers. Neither site requires adult permission to use, which some conservatives say they find troubling but LGBTQ+ experts say is essential for youth who need support and are not comfortable bringing their questions to a family member.

“I don’t know of any child that’s going to feel very comfortable talking about these issue with their parents, but parents are not the enemies,” said Todd Gathje, a lobbyist for the Family Foundation, which has advocated against LGBTQ+ rights. “What’s problematic is when you have government entities coming between the parent and child. … That’s when things become very dangerous.”

Messages left at Queer Kid Stuff and Q Chat Space Wednesday were not returned.

The LGBTQ+ rights group Equality Virginia called taking down the resources “craven and politically motivated.”

“This is part of a pattern with this administration, where it’s more important to appeal to an anti-LGBTQ+ political base rather than serve LGBTQ+ Virginians in any capacity,” Narissa Rahaman, executive director of Equality Virginia, said in a statement.

The three documented instances when Youngkin officials have removed online public health resources involve the same office in the Virginia Department of Health, records show: the Office of Family Health, which has a <a href="https://www.vdh.virginia.gov/vdhlivewell/" target=_blank>mission </a>of “Protecting and improving the health of people in Virginia with a focus on women, infants, children, adolescents, and their families.”

Employees in that division in 2022 told The Washington Post that their work on maternal health disparities had been dismissed by Youngkin’s first health chief, Colin Greene, who in comments to them and to The Post questioned the role of structural racism in public health. The Democratic-controlled Senate in February ultimately <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/02/10/greene-virginia-health-youngkin-abortion/" target=_blank>ousted Greene</a>, a U.S. Army veteran who previously ran a health district in rural northwestern Virginia. (Youngkin has since appointed him a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/05/12/virginia-opioid-czar-colin-greene/" target=_blank>special adviser</a> on opioids.)

In emails from the day the LGBTQ+ resources were removed, division head Vanessa Walker Harris and other employees referred to the past incidents.

“I’m having a bad case of déjà vu,” she wrote to Maria Reppas, the department director of communications, and copied others in her division and on the communications team. “What am I missing? I’m very concerned that staff were directed to remove the webpage without engaging [subject matter experts] in response to a politically motivated inquiry, yet again.”

The first came in February 2022, when Greene directed the manager of the web team remove from the sexual health FAQ page the question, “Where can I learn more about sexual health and pregnancy/STI prevention?” and the answer that recommended an online chatbot powered by Planned Parenthood and two other sites with information catered toward teenagers, records show.

Three months later, in May 2022, the emails show, Greene directed Emily Yeatts, who works in Walker Harris’s division, to request the removal of a list of five Virginia-based organizations that may be able to provide financial assistance for abortion.

Greene also directed the removal of a definition of reproductive justice from the department’s family planning webpage — “the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities” — emails show.

The requests came the day after the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion that ultimately overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling legalizing the right to an abortion nationwide.

“[A]nd in other news, here we go again with removing things from the webpage without consulting ofhs,” Yeatts wrote to Walker Harris on May 31 of this year, on the afternoon that a reporter for the Daily Wire submitted questions. “[T]he adolescent health website now? What in the world?” wrote another employee.

Upon learning of the Daily Wire questions, two subject-matter experts, including Yeatts, floated a draft reply that said “VDH’s webpage includes information for all people, including transgender youth, and strives to include information consistent with best public health practices,” adding: “LGBT people are at increased risk for violence.”

Walker Harris wrote back saying that because her team manages the content on the website, she hoped their “subject matter expertise” would be considered in an agency response.

The emails do not show the department responding, and the story does not include a comment from the department.

In a message to colleagues on May 31, Walker Harris said Karen Shelton, Youngkin’s new health commissioner, apologized for how the change was handled, saying “she received a directive from [Health and Human Resources] to pull the webpage down and there wasn’t much time to communicate about it.”

The following week, a journalist with the Richmond-based Virginia Mercury asked Reppas whether the resources would be restored. Reppas immediately turned to higher-ups for guidance. The next day, emails show, Virginia Health Department Chief Operating Officer R. Christopher Lindsay responded:

“Maria- this is part of an overall project to look at areas of the VDH website that can use redesign. We are using data to look at website traffic and will redesign towards public health initiatives that are relevant to consumer demand.”

Records indicate the response was never sent.

University of Delaware, BA in English 

Jenna Portnoy is the local health reporter for The Washington Post. She previously covered members of Congress from the greater Washington region and worked in the Richmond bureau. Before joining The Post, she worked for the Newark Star-Ledger in her home state, as well as the Allentown Morning Call and Philadelphia City Paper. 

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