Trump HHS tells states to remove gender ideology from sex ed or lose PREP funding

The Trump administration directed 46 states and territories to remove gender ideology from their sex ed materials or else face possible termination of federal Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) funding, with a family advocate praising the move.

Policy director for family advocacy group American Principles Project Paul Dupont told The Center Square: “The introduction of gender ideology into schools has been an enormous scandal, and the Trump administration is doing the right thing in moving to defund it.”

Dupont told The Center Square that this directive from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) “is what real leadership looks like.”

“The American people gave President Trump a mandate to restore sanity to our government, and that’s exactly what he’s doing,” Dupont said.

Dupont told The Center Square that “for years now, American tax dollars have been used to teach our children the false and harmful ideas that they can be born in the wrong body and that any discomfort with their identity could be a sign that they are actually a different gender.

“It should come as no surprise that the number of children identifying as transgender has skyrocketed recently, with many tragically being put on the pipeline to irreversible hormonal and surgical interventions,” Dupont said.

“During the last election, President Trump campaigned strongly on protecting our children from harmful gender ideology,” Dupont said. “Since taking office, the president and his administration have delivered on those promises, with this HHS directive being the most recent example.”

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) told The Center Square that “earlier this year, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) requested that all states submit their PREP curricula for review.”

PREP’s efforts work towards “preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections” in young people, as stated on an HHS webpage.

HHS told The Center Square it “identified concerning gender ideology content in 46 states and territories that exceeded the program’s statutory purposes,” following this review.

“ACF is giving these states and territories 60 days to remove all content outside the scope of the PREP statute, and failure to comply will result in enforcement actions including the withholding, suspension, or termination of federal PREP funding,” the HHS told The Center Square.

The HHS said that “ACF remains steadfast in its mission to protect American families and children and will continue to uphold the integrity of federally funded programs.”

The 40 states the HHS told to remove gender ideology from their sex ed materials are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, according to a news release.

The five territories include Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, with Washington D.C. making 46.

The total amount of funding that could be withheld or terminated from all 46 states and territories comes to more than $81 million.

The HHS said in its press release that its demand for the removal of transgenderism from sex ed “reflects the Trump Administration’s ongoing commitment to protecting children from attempts to indoctrinate them with delusional ideology.”

Last week, California’s PREP grant was terminated after the state refused to remove “radical gender ideology” from its federally-funded “education program to prevent teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections in schoolchildren.”