The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) was ordered to erase any mention of trans youth from public-facing media and resources last week or face losing its funding from Donald Trump’s Justice Department.

The nonprofit complied.

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Independent journalist Marisa Kabas first reported the order on Thursday. A staff meeting held on Friday confirmed the purge of materials referencing trans youth.

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“All statements on all public facing material—including the website, reporting, training materials and survivor presentations—that spoke about genders other than male or female had to be edited to reflect male or female,” an NCMEC staff member told Kabas. “If those materials were not easily editable, they were to be removed.”

“Earlier this week, like many federally funded non-profits, NCMEC was directed by DOJ to comply with Executive Order 14168,” an NCMEC spokesperson said in an emailed statement to NBC News, referring to Trump’s “Gender Ideology” directive. “We are responding to this direction in a balanced way reviewing our publicly facing materials to ensure compliance while not impacting our 40-year mission of child protection.”

By Friday, NCMEC’s website had been scrubbed of all mentions of LGBTQ+ youth.

At least three documents on its “NCMEC Data” page — including a report on missing children with suicidal tendencies, a report on male victims of child sex trafficking, and an overall data analysis of children missing from care — have been removed since the page’s last archived date of January 24th, according to The Verge. Archived copies of all three reports had mentions of LGBTQ+ youth and transgender children in particular. 

Three guides to recognizing and preventing child sex trafficking, which included an overview referencing homeless youth who have been “kicked out due to lack of acceptance of their sexual orientation or gender identity,” and a guide for parents that mentions victims of child sex trafficking including “boys, girls, and transgender youth,” were also taken down.

NCMEC is the primary U.S. nonprofit fighting child sexual exploitation and coordinates with law enforcement and tech companies to identify and remove child sexual abuse material. Millions of child sexual abuse reports are filed each year to its CyberTipline, and the group works with law enforcement to issue Amber alerts.

The organization receives $50 million of its roughly $70 million budget from government contracts and grants, according to its last financial report, including a block grant from the Department of Justice.

NCMEC employees who attended Friday’s staff meeting were “shocked and very sad” that the organization would roll over without a fight. A staffer has since told Kabas that her reporting triggered a search for her sources.

“I would say that their hunt for a whistleblower and their flaccid response to NBC yesterday would imply that they aren’t altogether concerned with the public response,” the staffer told Kabas.

“Congress created NCMEC, gave it immunity, and funded it because they do the dirty work,” Don McGowan, a former NCMEC Board member and a vocal advocate for trans youth, told Kabas. “They need NCMEC as much as NCMEC needs them.”

“NCMEC holds a space in US government circles that it is refusing to use right now,” McGowan explained. “If they said this order is putting kids at risk and needs to be reworked, they are just about the only org in the country that has a chance of making that happen. It’s morally wrong for them not to.”

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