By Michael Gryboski, Editor 
The National Park Service has removed an official biography of the first black female Episcopal Church priest and allegedly removed references to her LGBT identification on some web pages, drawing criticism from her supporters.
The Rev. Pauli Murray, the first black woman to be ordained in The Episcopal Church, was known for her civil rights activism and co-founding the pro-abortion National Organization for Women, one of the largest liberal feminist activist organizations in the country.
In a March 6 statement, the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice in Durham, North Carolina, stated that the federal government disabled “at least one webpage, and scrubbed language related to Murray’s transgender and queer identities on others, on the National Park Service (NPS) website.”
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NPS has removed the web page hosting Murray’s biography. The page now reads: “Page not found.”
The center, which is housed in Murray’s former childhood home and was recognized as a National Historic Landmark during the final year of the Obama administration, pushed back on what it claims are “the federal government’s efforts to erase” Murray.
“Murray’s legacy has been obscured alongside other figures and sites recognized by NPS, including the Stonewall National Monument, Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and others on a still-growing list,” the center stated.
While the center’s statement doesn’t clarify from which web pages language was altered, the NPS page for the Pauli Murray Family Home states that Murray “struggled with her sexual identity and sexual orientation” and “later found loving same-sex relationships foundational to her life.” The NPS page on the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice in Durham also states that she “struggled with their gender and scholars have suggested they identified as transgender.”
Angela Thorpe Mason, executive director at the center, told The Christian Post in emailed comments that her organization first became aware of the changes last week.
Mason said the center has “also invited community support, encouraging our supporters to call their Congressperson to condemn this censorship.”
According to the National Museum of African American History & Culture, Murray wrote extensively about her own gender identity and sexuality, having had romantic relationships with both men and women but also possibly personally identifying as male even though she was a woman.
“Murray wrote about her gender identity and sexuality throughout her life. In her journals, Murray wondered if she was one of nature’s experiments; a girl who should have been a boy,'” the museum stated.
“Murray had at least two significant romantic relationships with women, though she resisted the term’ lesbian.’ She associated negative stereotypes with lesbians, and saw herself as a man attracted to what she called ‘bisexual’ women.”
Mason said she “would be disappointed that any one of my peers would approve of censoring and erasing the whole contributions of any historical figure based on a single identity marker.”
“Analyzing, sharing, and understanding history requires that we hold space for its nuances and complexities, not ignore them. We understand that when the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray lived, language about LGBTQ+ communities, gender expression, and gender was different than it is today,” Mason continued.
“While we don’t know how Pauli Murray would identify if they were living today, the archival record supports the fact that Murray self-identified as a ‘he/she’ personality, and chronicles Murray’s journey to understand and express their gender identity.”
In response to the allegations of censorship, a spokesperson for the National Park Service told CP that the agency is implementing two orders on the issue of gender ideology.
The first was President Donald Trump’s “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” executive order, which officially declares that there are only two sexes.
“Agencies shall remove all statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications, or other internal and external messages that promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology, and shall cease issuing such statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications or other messages,” noted one provision of the order.
“Agency forms that require an individual’s sex shall list male or female, and shall not request gender identity. Agencies shall take all necessary steps, as permitted by law, to end the Federal funding of gender ideology.”
The other was an order from Acting Secretary of the Interior Walter Cruickshank titled “Ending DEI Programs and Gender Ideology Extremism,” which was built off of the Trump executive order.
Cruickshank ordered that all department offices “shall immediately cease any and all equity-related activities, under any name or characterization that they may appear.”
“This Order is intended to halt all actions related to ‘illegal and immoral discrimination’ programs, including DEI, DEIA, and EJ (collectively, ‘equity-related’) mandates, policies, preferences, and activities in the Department,” he added.
“This Order and any resulting report or recommendations are not intended to, and do not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or equity by a party against the United States, its Departments, agencies, instrumentalities or entities, its officers or employees, or any other person.”
