The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ordered 40 states and Washington D.C. Tuesday to remove all mention of gender ideology from their federally funded Personal Responsibility Education Programs (PREP).
The sweeping order could affect whether HHS continues to fund the development and advancement of radical comprehensive sex education (CSE).
CSE programs contend children have “sexual rights.” They deemphasize abstinence in favor of teaching children how to “consent” to and engage in sexual interactions.
According to Stop CSE, an online database that collects and analyzes inappropriate sex ed curricula, CSE programs contain at least one of 15 harmful characteristics:
- Normalizes child sex or desensitizes children to sexual things.
- Teaches children how to ‘consent’ to sex.
- Promotes anal or oral sex.
- Normalizes or promotes homosexual behaviors.
- Teaches children they have a “right” to sexual pleasure.
- Promotes masturbation.
- Promotes condom use in sexualized or sexually explicit ways.
- Promotes premature sexual autonomy by teaching children they can meaningfully consent to sexual activity.
- Fails to emphasize abstinence.
- Normalizes or promotes gender ideology.
- Promotes contraception or abortion to children.
- Instructs children to teach each other about sex and sexual pleasure.
- Undermines traditional value systems.
- Undermines parents and parental rights, including by normalizing kids hiding medical care and sexual activity from their parents.
- Refers children to harmful outside resources like Planned Parenthood.
California’s PREP program uses four CSE curricula. Three — ¡Cuidate!, Sexual Health and Adolescent Risk Prevention (SHARP) and Making Proud Choices — are federally approved Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) programs. Governments and non-profits that teach these materials can receive federal TPP grants from HHS.
Just last week, however, HHS axed California’s PREP grants after finding its curricula contained “delusional” gender ideology. The department included several examples of California’s “disturbing and egregious abuse of federal funds” in its termination letter, including [teaching] curricula promoting or normalizing:
- Transgender medical interventions
- Differentiation between “sex” and “gender identity.”
¡Cuidate! and Making Proud Choices include all 15 harmful elements of CSE, including normalizing homosexual behaviors and gender ideology.
Of Making Proud Choices, Stop CSE writes,
[It] promotes acceptance of diverse sexual orientations and gender-identities and even contains same-sex role play scenarios for teens to act out.
If this material does not qualify for PREP funding, as HHS has (rightly) determined, it shouldn’t qualify for any federal funding — including TPP grants.
This is especially important given organizations like Planned Parenthood use TPP grants to bilk taxpayers.
In 2023, HHS awarded five Planned Parenthood affiliates TPP grants worth $9.6 million, which they used to implement and advance CSE.
Controlling sex education is a key part of Planned Parenthood’s government-funded abortion pipeline: Taxpayers pay Planned Parenthood to teach kids how to have sex through TPP grants. Then, they pay Planned Parenthood to treat young people’s STDs and kill their unplanned babies through Title X “family planning” grants.
The Trump administration has made great strides toward dismantling this apparatus. In March, HHS froze all Title X grants to Planned Parenthood pending an investigation into its “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” policies.
More recently, Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which included a provision effectively stripping Planned Parenthood of Medicaid funds for one year.
Now, HHS’ crackdown on gender ideology in PREP programs could be a step toward removing federal support for CSE altogether — and, by extension, radical organizations seeking to mold children’s sexual identities.
That’s great news for Christians, families and taxpayers alike.
Additional Articles and Resources
Feds Order States: Stop using taxes to teach ‘delusional’ gender ideology
Trump Admin Tells California: Remove ‘Gender Ideology’ From Education Program
Twenty-Three States Sue to Stop Defunding of Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood Receives Millions of Dollars Through Federal ‘Family Planning’ Grants
Planned Parenthood Uses Taxes to Pay for Abortion, Radical Sex Ed
BREAKING: Trump Administration Moves to Freeze, Cut Funding to Planned Parenthood
