From The Hill: The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Thursday announced it had terminated California’s participation in a federal sex education grant program after the state refused to remove information about transgender people from its curricula.
The department’s Administration for Children and Families (ACF) asked California in March to submit all learning materials for its Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP), a teen pregnancy prevention and sexual health initiative established in 2010 under the Affordable Care Act, “for a medical accuracy review.”
On Thursday, HHS said it identified content in the state’s curricula outside of the scope of PREP’s authorizing statute.
“Specifically, ACF identified multiple examples of gender ideology content, including lessons teaching students that gender identity is distinct from biological sex and that boys can identify as girls and vice versa,” acting Assistant Secretary Andrew Gradison wrote in a termination letter to officials at California’s Department of Public Health (CDPH).
The letter provides a list of acceptable topics, including teaching students about both abstinence and contraception and suggests many appropriate topics with instruction on healthy relationships, adolescent development, financial literacy, parent-child communication, education and career success and healthy life skills.
The letter then declares:
The statute includes no mention of gender ideology, which is both irrelevant to teaching abstinence and contraception and unrelated to any of the adult preparation subjects described in section 713(b)(2)(C). The statute does not require, support, or authorize teaching students that gender identity is distinct from biological sex or that boys can identify as girls and vice versa; thus, gender ideology is outside the scope of the authorizing statute.
As a result, the Trump administration has yanked funding for the program, since California has not abided by the rules.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is already complaining, A spokesperson for his office said in a statement, “If it’s a day ending in y, President Trump is attacking kids’ safety, health, and access to education as part of his culture war.”
Former Fox News editor and writer Trevor Thacker reacted to the news, sharing a screenshot from a Fox News broadcast and writing, “🚨BREAKING NEWS🚨 HHS pulls taxpayer-funded grant from CA over its failure to remove radical gender ideology from their sex-ed curriculum… According to HHS ACF Acting-Assistant Secretary Andrew Gradison says CA schools were teaching gender ideology to students as young as 10-years old…🙄”
“Listen, if you support this mental illness, you will not receive ONE DOLLAR in federal funding… Period. This “transanity” 🐂💩 is OVER!!!😤”
🚨BREAKING NEWS🚨
HHS pulls taxpayer-funded grant from CA over its failure to remove radical gender ideology from their sex-ed curriculum…According to HHS ACF Acting-Assistant Secretary Andrew Gradison says CA schools were teaching gender ideology to students as young as… pic.twitter.com/6DDL0OMFD1
— Trevor Thacker (@trethack24) August 21, 2025
WATCH the Fox News report below, which features an interview with Gradison, for more details:
.@HHSGov terminates California sex ed grant after it refuses to drop ‘radical’ gender lessons https://t.co/qW3xXojxCU
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 21, 2025
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