The Trump administration is threatening to strip millions in federal grant funding from dozens of states with sex education programs that include information about transgender people.
The Department of Health and Human Services’s (HHS) Administration for Children and Families (ACF) said Tuesday it is putting 46 states, U.S. territories and Washington, D.C., “on notice” to remove within 60 days “all references to gender ideology” from their Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP), a teen pregnancy prevention and sexual health initiative created by the Affordable Care Act.
Together, the states and territories stand to lose more than $81 million in federal grant funding, according to the ACF.
“This action reflects the Trump Administration’s ongoing commitment to protecting children from attempts to indoctrinate them with delusional ideology,” the department said Tuesday in a news release. States that fail to comply may see their PREP funding withheld, suspended or terminated.
“Accountability is coming,” acting Assistant Secretary Andrew Gradison said. “Federal funds will not be used to poison the minds of the next generation or advance dangerous ideological agendas.”
“The Trump Administration will ensure that PREP reflects the intent of Congress,” he said, “not the priorities of the left.”
The warnings to states and territories come roughly a week after the HHS terminated California’s PREP grant over the state’s refusal to remove “gender ideology content” from its program materials. The department said the information exceeded the scope of PREP’s authorizing statute and “is not supported by the weight of science.”
The California Department of Public Health (CDPH), responding to its grant termination, said its PREP curriculum is “medically accurate, comprehensive, and age-appropriate” and was previously approved by the ACF and found to be compliant with federal statute.
“CA PREP curriculum is aligned with federal statute requiring the curriculum to address (among other topics) ‘adolescent development, such as the development of healthy attitudes and values about adolescent growth and development, body image, racial and ethnic diversity, and other related subjects,’” the CDPH said.
President Trump’s administration has broadly sought to deny transgender identities. An executive order signed on his first day back in office proclaims that the U.S. recognizes only two unchangeable sexes, male and female, and prohibits the federal government from promoting “gender ideology.”
The administration has also moved to ban gender-affirming care for minors, bar transgender girls from participating in girls’ sports, and ban trans people from serving openly in the military.
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