HHS orders California to remove gender ideology from federally-funded sex ed

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has ordered the state of California to remove gender ideology from federally-funded sex education programs.

The instruction appears in a June 20 letter from the department’s Administration for Children and Families (ACF) regarding the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP), a federal program to decrease teenage pregnancy.

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The administration requested the state’s PREP curriculum in March for a “medical accuracy review.”

In its June 20 notice, the administration instructed the state to cease promoting gender ideology because the PREP program does not authorize such content.

“The Trump Administration will not tolerate the use of federal funds for programs that indoctrinate our children,” Acting Assistant Secretary Andrew Gradison said in a press release. “The disturbing gender ideology content in California’s PREP materials is both unacceptable and well outside the program’s core purpose.” 

“ACF remains committed to radical transparency and providing accountability so that parents know what their children are being taught in schools,” he continued.

The administration’s letter cites many examples of what it considers gender ideology.

The first lesson of a class for middle schoolers discusses people who possess the physical characteristics of one gender but have a different “identity” compared to others.

“We’ve been talking during class about messages people get on how they should act as boys and girls—but as many of you know, there are also people who don’t identify as boys or girls, but rather as transgender or gender queer,” the lesson states. “This means that even if they were called a boy or a girl at birth and may have body parts that are typically associated with being a boy or a girl, on the inside, they feel differently.”

Another lesson for middle schoolers explains what it means to identify as transgender: “Transgender refers to a person’s gender identity. Gender identity is your inner sense of your gender—Do you feel like a guy? Do you feel like a girl? Do you feel like something different than a guy or a girl?” 

It concludes: “Often gender identity matches a person’s body— someone with a girl’s body feels like a girl on the inside or someone with a boy’s body feels like a boy on the inside—but not always. Transgender is when a person’s inner feelings about gender identity don’t match the body.”

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Instructions for high school teachers include a prompt to “Remind students that some men are born with female anatomy, some women are born with male anatomy.”

In response to a Campus Reform request for comment, the California Department of Public Health released a statement saying that it “has received and is reviewing the letter.”

“The sexual education curricula implemented by CA PREP-funded agencies are medically accurate, comprehensive, and age-appropriate,” the statement read. “The curricula have been federally pre-approved, in accordance with federal regulations.”

Since beginning in January, the Trump administration has prioritized removing support for gender ideology and pushing institutions that receive federal funding to cease promoting it. 

The president signed an executive order in January called “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”