What Happens When You Remove The Word Gay? Rachel Maddow Reveals Trump World’s Lazy Attempt At Censorship
The Trump administration’s latest purge of words has taken an unexpected turn at the Pentagon. In their rush to scrub diversity content from military records, they’ve accidentally flagged the famous World War II bomber, the Enola Gay. Yes, you read that correctly. Rachel Maddow from MSNBC recently shared this gem of a mix-up that has historians raising their eyebrows and the rest of us aghast.
Under Donald Trump’s second term, the Department of Defense started a mission to delete diversity and inclusion materials. Their weapon of choice? An automated system hunting for certain words, including “gay”. But this digital detective wasn’t exactly Sherlock Holmes.
The system flagged photos of the Enola Gay bomber, not because it had anything to do with diversity programs but simply because “Gay” was part of its name. For those who skipped history class, this B-29 dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945 and was named after the pilot Colonel Paul Tibbets Jr.’s mother, Enola Gay Tibbets. We doubt she ever imagined her name would cause such confusion 80 years later.
The US military has removed photos of the B-29 bomber “Enola Gay” — which dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan — apparently because it contains the word “gay,” which violates their new anti-DEI rules. pic.twitter.com/q7mOVFFDx5
— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) March 7, 2025
It Gets Better (Or Worse?)
The Enola Gay wasn’t the only casualty in this word war. Service members with the surname “Gay” found their photos marked for deletion, too. Even an Army Corps of Engineers project got flagged because someone involved had “Gay” as their last name.
The system also targeted historical images of the Tuskegee Airmen and pioneering women Marines. Who needs these historical achievements anyway, right? (That’s sarcasm, in case you missed it.)
The Computer Says No
How did this happen? The Pentagon’s system operated like that friend who never gets context – it just scanned for keywords without understanding what they meant. As Maddow points out, this turned a controversial policy into something that feels like an episode from a political comedy show.
“This is what happens when you let computers make decisions without adult supervision,” she quipped during her segment.
Beyond the obvious comedy of errors, we should ask: what happens when important history gets accidentally erased? The Pentagon has flagged more than 26,000 items so far, with estimates suggesting up to 100,000 could eventually be deleted.
new approved version pic.twitter.com/PhqDZPPwxI
— Roope Rainisto (@rainisto) March 7, 2025
The Enola Gay remains one of the most significant aircraft in military history. After dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, it briefly served as a weather reconnaissance plane before finding its final home at the Smithsonian Institution. Today, it sits in the National Air and Space Museum, where visitors can see it without triggering any content filters.
The Pentagon hasn’t commented on these specific mix-ups, but historians and military veterans are watching closely.
We can only hope someone at the Department of Defense reads a history book before hitting “delete” on thousands of historical records.
