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HHS Orders California to Remove Gender-Identity Content From Federally Funded Sex Education

The Administration for Children and Families determined that teaching concepts of gender identity falls outside the program’s legally defined scope.

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (left) speaks as U.S. President Donald Trump looks on during a news conference at the White House on May 12, 2025, in Washington, D.C. In a letter sent Friday to the California Department of Public Health, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families called the state’s Personal Responsibility Education Program “noncompliant” with federal law. 
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Overview

  • California’s federally funded Personal Responsibility Education Program must remove all references to gender identity within 60 days or risk loss of federal funding.
  • HHS’s Administration for Children and Families flagged lessons introducing transgender, genderqueer and nonbinary identities as outside the program’s authorizing statute focused on abstinence, contraception and STD prevention.
  • Acting Assistant Secretary Andrew Gradison said the gender ideology content exceeds the program’s legal authority and undermines parental oversight of classroom instruction.
  • After removing the flagged material, California must resubmit its curriculum for approval to maintain its PREP grant.
  • The Department of Health and Human Services is also investigating other state PREP grant recipients to ensure compliance with federal funding rules.