The Trump administration announced Thursday that it will be pulling more than $12 million from California over “gender ideology” in its sexual education programs.
The Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Administration for Children and Families (ACF) put out a press release announcing this move to stop California’s Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) from receiving a massive amount of federal funding over the next few years.
Acting Assistant Secretary of the ACF Andrew Gradison wrote in the press release, “California’s refusal to comply with federal law and remove egregious gender ideology from federally funded sex-ed materials is unacceptable.”
“Accountability is coming for every state that uses federal funds to teach children delusional gender ideology,” Gradison said.
According to the California Department of Public Health (CDPH), the program aims at changing behavior, including delaying sexual activity, increasing condom or contraceptive use for sexually active youth, and reducing the number of sexual partners for youth ages 10-19.
The program receives all of its funding from the Health and Human Services’ ACF and Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB).
Gradison appeared on “America’s Newsroom” on Thursday to explain the process that went into this decision.
Gradison pointed to materials that promoted the belief that “boys could be girls and girls could be boys and that the solution, oftentimes, was mutilating their genitals.”
“The American people elected President Trump to restore sanity and common sense in this country,” Gradison said. “Part of that is removing gender ideology from state sex-ed curriculum.”
President Trump also threatened federal funding from any state that chooses to disobey the guidance from HHS in a post to Truth Social on Thursday.
“Any California school district that doesn’t adhere to our Transgender policies, will not be funded,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
This decision to pull all federal funding from California’s PREP is the product of months of back and forth between the Trump administration and California health officials. The ACF originally requested PREP documents from California in March. In June, it demanded that the state revise its program within 60 days.
California state health officials failed to respond until one day before the deadline, when they denied any medical inaccuracies on the part of the program and said it would not take the recommended corrective measures.
“In a disturbing and egregious abuse of federal funds, California has been using taxpayer money to teach curricula that could encourage kids to contemplate mutilating their genitals, ‘altering their body … through hormone therapy,’ ‘adding or removing breast tissue,’ and ‘changing their name.’ It instructed teachers to ‘remind students that some men are born with female anatomy,'” HHS said in a Thursday press release of the teachings, according to Fox News.
Previous grant funding shows California’s PREP program received just under $6 million from the federal government in fiscal year 2022.
This is the most recent step that the Trump administration is taking against what the president has called woke programs that affect students and young people. The president recently signed an executive order to keep men out of women’s sports.
Trump is also currently in a litigation battle against California for continuing to allow transgender-identifying males to compete in female sports. The suit argued that California was depriving young girls of athletic opportunities.