12 February 2025 , 21:20
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Google has quietly removed key cultural holidays, including Black History Month and LGBTQ+ Pride Month, from its calendar app.
The tech giant’s online and mobile calendar has for years marked the two celebrationsd on the first days of February and June respectively.
But for 2025, both months are blank. References to Women’s History Month, Indigenous People Month, Jewish Heritage Month, Hispanic Heritage Month and Holocaust Remembrance Day have also been removed from this year.
Now the time-management service only shows default entries for public holidays and national observances, such as Christmas Day.
Users began flagging the change yesterday to the Google Calendar Help Community board, where product experts confirmed the removal.
The decision to no longer acknowledge Black, LGBTQ+ and women’s holidays didn’t exactly go down well with users.
One user, Grace Spence, said: ‘I understand that posting here will do absolutely nothing but I need to express just how sick and absolutely disgusting this company is for removing these holidays’
‘History will never be on your side.’
Another added: ‘I am disappointed that you have removed cultural events from your calendar. I always envisioned Google as a force for good in the world, and not racially or culturally biased. Poor show, Google.’
A third user, Karen Cline-Tardiff, said the move is ‘shameful’.
In response, Google product experts recommended users manually add the cultural holidays or send feedback through the Calendar app.
A Google spokesperson told The Verge that the company worked with TimeAndDate.com, a time-keeping website, to help add public holidays and national observances to the Calendar software.
Pride Month is celebrated in June worldwide (Picture: Getty Images)
They said: ‘Some years ago, the Calendar team started manually adding a broader set of cultural moments in a wide number of countries around the world.
‘We got feedback that some other events and countries were missing – and maintaining hundreds of moments manually and consistently globally wasn’t scalable or sustainable.
‘So in mid-2024, we returned to showing only public holidays and national observances from timeanddate.com globally, while allowing users to manually add other important moments.’
The company has also confirmed that the changes to Google Calendar will not impact Google Doodles, redesigns of the company logo on the search engine’s home page that celebrates
Timeanddate.com does list events such as Pride Month and Black History Month in the US.
Google has been approached for comment.
Google Maps renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America on Monday (Picture: Getty Images)
Timeanddate.com told Metro: ‘Timeanddate.com provides holiday data to customers via an application program interface (API), providing the same information available on our website. Customers can customise which data to display.’
It is not the only change Google, which is owned by its parent company Alphabet Inc, has made to its platforms since Donald Trump began his second term.
Google Maps renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America – and the US president took credit, of course.
‘GULF OF AMERICA!’ wrote Trump on his Truth Social platform along with a screen grab of the body of water named exactly that in Google Maps.
The change was made on Monday after Trump signed an executive order to rename the oceanic basin mostly surrounded by Mexico and the US.
A Google search of the Gulf of Mexico also yields the Gulf of America.
Google previously said that it follows ‘a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources’.
Google’s explanation for the name difference in different locations (Picture: Google/SWNS)
However, it is only users in the US who will see it named Gulf of America. Users in Mexico will still see it labelled Gulf of Mexico, and those in the rest of the world will see it as ‘Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)’.
Google in a blog post noted that it rolled out the changes because ‘the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) has officially updated’ the name.
Trump in his Truth Social post shared a link to a White House page on presidential actions that declared February 9 as the first-ever Gulf of America Day.
‘As my Administration restores American pride in the history of American greatness, it is fitting and appropriate for our great Nation to come together and commemorate this momentous occasion and the renaming of the Gulf of America,’ wrote Trump.