🔗 Share this article

No fewer than eleven jurisdictions and a pair of regions have agreed to a recent directive from the Trump administration to remove mentions of gender identity and the presence of trans and non-binary people from a federal sex education initiative, officials confirmed.

The government set a recent cutoff for removing these mentions, warning the loss of millions in federal funds. Nearly all of the complying states have GOP-led state legislatures and predominantly GOP state leaders.

Legal Challenges and Funding Disputes

Sixteen other states and Washington DC have filed a lawsuit challenging the government's requirement, claiming it violates Congressional authority, which created the $75 million sexual health initiative, known as the PREP initiative.

All states involved in the legal challenge are led by Democratic state executives.

In a late Monday court order, a federal judge blocked the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which manages Prep, from withholding funding to the suing jurisdictions if they refuse to comply.

“HHS fails to show that the updated requirements are reasonable, let alone offer any valid reason, other than an excuse, for its actions,” wrote the judge, a U.S. district judge in the state. “HHS provides no evidence that it made factual findings or considered the legal goals.”

Initiative Aims and Federal Review

Prep aims to educate adolescents on positive interactions and how to avoid pregnancy and the transmission of sexually transmitted infections.

In the spring, the federal government demanded all states and territories receiving program money to provide a copy of their educational materials to the department and its subsidiary, the ACF office, for a health content assessment.

By late summer, the administration sent letters to 46 states and territories, stating that, during the review, it had found “content in the educational programs that deviate from the purview of the program's legal framework.”

In particular, the administration claimed it had identified evidence of “gender ideology,” a phrase often used by rightwing groups to describe the idea that gender is a fluid social construct and that trans and non-binary people are real.

Notable Cases of Required Alterations

The government directed Illinois to drop a lesson that stated: “Adolescents may express themselves in ways that don’t conform with their assigned gender.”

It instructed North Carolina to eliminate a line from a middle school lesson that stated: “Individuals regardless of identity need to know how to prevent pregnancy and STDs.”

Moreover, sex educators in many jurisdictions could no longer be told to “demonstrate acceptance and respect for all participants, regardless of individual traits, including race, cultural background, religion, social class, sexual orientation or identity,” according to the notices sent to jurisdictions.

Government Comments and Jurisdictional Reactions

“Accountability is coming,” declared a federal official, acting assistant secretary of the Administration for Children and Families, in a announcement. “Federal funds will not be used to poison the minds of the youth or advance harmful political doctrines.”

Multiple jurisdictions and regions stated they would eliminate the content or had already done so. These include Alaska, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wyoming, as well as the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands.

Another pair of jurisdictions, the states, said their educational programs never contained the language mentioned in the government's notices.

Effects on Adolescents and Psychological Well-being

Collectively, these states are inhabited by over 120,000 transgender individuals aged 13 to 17, based on projections from a university department.

“If our goal is to support youth and give them a secure environment, I’m not sure why we are targeting the most vulnerable youth in the population,” commented an advocate, who leads Rise that provides sex education in one state.

“When the government says that there’s something incorrect about you and the teachers aren’t allowed to provide information or they have to out you to your parents – when you know that that’s not safe – that’s horrible for mental health.”

Nearly half of transgender adolescents contemplated self-harm in the past year, 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 discovered.

Previous Actions and Ongoing Disputes

Earlier this year, the Trump administration ordered a state to remove references to gender identity from its Prep curriculum.

When the jurisdiction refused, the administration revoked its funding, eliminating approximately $12m in federal funding and stopping sex education programs in educational institutions, juvenile detention facilities and care facilities.

The California health department is appealing the termination. So far, it has been unable to replace the withdrawn money.

The government has additionally told instructors who obtain money from two other federal sex education initiatives, the $50m SRAE program and the $101m TPPP initiative, that they may not teach about “gender ideology.”

An early October court order blocked the administration from changing TPPP, while the Monday court order prohibits it from changing SRAE in the Democratic states that challenged Prep.

The Administration for Children and Families did not provide a prompt reply to a inquiry.