Federal Officials Demands Exclusion of Gender Identity Issues from Sexual Health Curricula, Multiple States Agree

No fewer than 11 states and a pair of regions have complied with a new demand from the Trump administration to remove mentions of gender identity and the presence of transgender and non-binary individuals from a national sexual health program, officials confirmed.

The government set a recent cutoff for removing these references, warning the loss of millions in federal funds. Nearly all of the complying states have GOP-led lawmaking bodies and predominantly Republican governors.

Court Battles and Financial Disputes

An additional sixteen jurisdictions and Washington DC have filed a lawsuit challenging the government's requirement, arguing it infringes on Congressional authority, which created the $75m sexual health initiative, known as the Personal Responsibility Education Program (Prep).

All states participating in the legal challenge are governed by Democratic state executives.

In a late Monday court order, a U.S. judge blocked the HHS agency, which oversees Prep, from withholding funding to the Democratic states if they refuse to comply.

“The agency does not demonstrate that the new grant conditions are justified, nor does it offer any reasonable explanation, other than an excuse, for its actions,” stated Ann Aiken, a federal jurist in Oregon. “HHS provides no evidence that it made factual findings or took into account the legal goals.”

Initiative Aims and Government Scrutiny

The program seeks to educate adolescents on healthy relationships and how to prevent pregnancy and the transmission of sexually transmitted infections.

In the spring, the Trump administration demanded all jurisdictions receiving Prep funds to submit a copy of their educational materials to HHS and its subsidiary, the ACF office, for a health content assessment.

By late summer, the administration dispatched notices to 46 states and territories, informing them that, during the evaluation, it had found “content in the curricula that fall outside the scope of Prep’s authorizing statute.”

In particular, the administration claimed it had uncovered evidence of “gender-related concepts,” a term often used by conservative factions to describe the idea that gender is a changeable social construct and that transgender individuals are real.

Specific Examples of Required Alterations

The government directed Illinois to drop a curriculum that said: “Adolescents may express themselves in ways that differ from their assigned gender.”

It instructed another state to delete a sentence from a educational module that stated: “Individuals regardless of identity need to know how to avoid pregnancy and STDs.”

Additionally, health instructors in many jurisdictions could no longer be instructed to “show tolerance and understanding for all participants, regardless of personal characteristics, including race, heritage, faith, economic status, sexual orientation or identity,” according to the notices dispatched to states.

Official Statements and State Responses

“Accountability is coming,” said Andrew Gradison, acting assistant secretary of the ACF office, in a statement. “Government money will not be used to poison the minds of the youth or promote dangerous ideological agendas.”

Multiple jurisdictions and regions confirmed they would remove the references or had already done so. These include eleven specific states, as well as the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands.

Two other states, the states, said their Prep curricula never included the language mentioned in the administration’s letters.

Effects on Adolescents and Psychological Well-being

Together, these states are home to over 120k trans people between the ages of 13 and 17, according to projections from a research institute.

“If our goal is to support youth and give them a safe space, I’m not sure why we are stomping on the most vulnerable youth in the population,” commented Cindi Huss, who heads an organization that provides sex education in Tennessee.

“When the government says that there’s something wrong with you and the educators aren’t allowed to tell you things or they have to disclose your identity to family – when you know that that’s not secure – that’s detrimental to psychological well-being.”

Nearly half of trans and non-binary youth seriously considered suicide in the previous twelve months, according to a recent study from a suicide-prevention group. Educational backing for these youths is associated with lower rates of attempted suicide, the group found.

Earlier Incidents and Ongoing Disputes

Previously, the Trump administration instructed a state to remove references to gender identity from its educational program.

When the jurisdiction declined, the government revoked its Prep grant, cutting about $12 million in government money and stopping sex education programs in educational institutions, youth centers and care facilities.

The California health department is challenging the termination. To date, it has been unsuccessful in replace the lost funding.

The Trump administration has additionally informed instructors who receive funding from additional national programs, the $50m SRAE program and the $101 million TPPP initiative, that they may not teach about “gender ideology.”

An early October judicial ruling prevented the administration from changing one program, while the latest ruling prohibits it from modifying SRAE in the Democratic states that challenged Prep.

The Administration for Children and Families did not immediately respond to a request for comment.