Employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) Hampton Medical Center in Virginia have recently reported that they were warned they could face discipline or termination for wearing or displaying rainbow-themed items, including official VA Pride lanyards. The reported warnings, which surfaced in mid-October, have created confusion and fear among staff members.
Vague Policy Directives Spark Concern
According to internal messages reviewed by The Advocate, employees were allegedly told by local leadership that the crackdown on rainbow apparel was linked to an “executive order.” This directive appears to be a local interpretation or invocation of the Trump administration’s “Defending Women” executive order, which redefined gender as strictly binary and based on sex assigned at birth.
- One employee message indicated that a physician warned a colleague, “Anything rainbow like lanyards can get us fired on the spot.”
- Another staff member reported that they were told that “Central Office is coming down on our leadership” and that “per executive order, you cannot have lanyards, rainbow magnets, [or] shirts.”
The employees report receiving no official, written policy change to support the warnings, making the directives seem arbitrary and causing confusion over official VA policy. One staff member, however, wrote that a supervisor later “backtracked all of it and said flyers, lanyards, shirts, [and] banners associated with clinical care of LGBTQ vets are approved by central office,” suggesting a mixed and unclear internal message.
Amidst Broader Policy Shifts
The reported situation at the Hampton VA Medical Center comes after broader policy shifts within the Veterans Affairs Department. In March, the VA rescinded Directive 1341, a long-standing policy that ensured transgender, nonbinary, and intersex veterans received respectful, clinically appropriate health care and were protected from discrimination. This move also cited President Donald Trump’s “Defending Women” executive order.
Earlier this year, the VA also unveiled new rules banning LGBTQ+ Pride flags and other unofficial banners from display in public VA facilities and offices, limiting displays to the American flag, state flags, military service flags, U.S. agency flags, and the POW/MIA flag, to bring “consistency to agency messaging.”…