The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), a nonprofit dedicated to child safety and closely collaborating with government and major tech platforms, has recently removed publications that discuss queer and transgender children from its website. This action follows reports indicating that NCMEC faced pressure to eliminate references to LGBTQ+ issues due to potential threats of losing government funding, aligning with former President Donald Trump’s agenda to diminish the acknowledgment of transgender individuals in the U.S.
NCMEC’s website hosts various reports addressing critical child endangerment issues, including statistics on abduction, sex trafficking, and online enticement. However, comparisons with the Wayback Machine reveal that at least three documents from its “NCMEC Data” page—such as a report on missing children with suicidal tendencies, a report on male victims of child sex trafficking, and a comprehensive analysis of children missing from care—have been removed since the last archived date of January 24th. Archived versions of these reports included references to LGBTQ+ issues, particularly concerning transgender children. The remaining 13 publications on NCMEC’s data page do not seem to contain these critical references.
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