More Erasure Efforts

Trump administration threatens to pull federal funding from sex ed programs that mention transgender people

August 27, 2025
Jen Christensen

A division of the US Department of Health and Human Services told 40 states, five territories and the District of Columbia on Tuesday that they “are now on notice”: Some federally funded sex ed programs need to remove any mention of gender identity or transgender people, even in passing, or risk losing potentially millions of dollars.

The letter from the Trump administration says the programs need to remove “gender ideology content” from sex ed materials paid for through the State Personal Responsibility Education Program, which was created by the Affordable Care Act.

“Accountability is coming,” Acting Assistant HHS Secretary Andrew Gradison said in a news release Tuesday. “Federal funds will not be used to poison the minds of the next generation or advance dangerous ideological agendas.”

Begun in 2010, PREP’s ultimate goal is to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, according to the US Family and Youth Services Bureau, an office of the Administration for Children & Families within HHS. Programs are meant to target groups including homeless youth, kids in foster care, people living in rural areas or areas with high teen birth rates, and young people who identify as being from “minority groups (including sexual minorities).”

Individual program details vary by state, but to get funding through the Personal Responsibility Education Program, they must design curricula that teach young people about abstinence and contraception.

The federal government had already approved the curriculum and program language before the funds were granted to the states or territories. But in April, ahead of a “medical accuracy review,” the letters said, the Administration for Children and Families identified program materials that “fall outside of the scope” of PREP: Most of the programs mention gender identity or transgender people in some fashion. According to the new letter, even a mere mention puts federal funds at risk.

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"[I will]  do everything in my power to protect LGBTQ citizens from hateful ideology."