California loses PREP funding after refusing to remove gender content

California Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom exposed children to inappropriate sexual content and indoctrinated them with twisted ideas about childhood sexuality using federal tax dollars. The Trump administration has brought this to an end. 

California’s federally funded Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) is riddled with radical gender ideology that denies biological reality, rejects gold-standard, evidence-based science and exceeds the scope of PREP’s authorizing statute. As a result, California will not receive further federal funding to indoctrinate children. 

The purpose of PREP, according to its authorizing statute, is “to educate adolescents on … both abstinence and contraception for the prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections” (42 U.S.C. § 713(b)(2)(A)). Program materials must rely on “medically-accurate,” “age-appropriate” information and are encouraged to display examples of “healthy relationships, including marriage and family interactions” as well as “parent-child communication.” 

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While the governor’s office claims that California PREP provides “comprehensive” and “evidence-based” education, the written curricula tell a different story. Take “Teen Talk,” one of the governor’s courses for middle- and high schoolers. The program instructs teachers to “remind students that some men are born with female anatomy.”  A boy can, according to ‘Teen Talk,’ “feel like a girl inside” and so defy his “community’s expectations for behavior.”  

For an impressionable youth experiencing gender dysphoria, “Teen Talk” suggests ways that they might go about realizing their “gender identity” by “changing their name,” “altering their body … through hormone therapy,” “adding or removing breast tissue,” or even “transforming” (that is, mutilating) “the genitals.” 

Instead of providing medically accurate, biologically sound educational materials, Newsom’s PREP materials teach children a harmful lie that can put young boys and girls in physical danger. These materials build the foundation for young men to compete against women in sports and invade women’s spaces, like locker rooms.  

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Worse, the social contagion of gender ideology makes young girls – potentially already anxious about their bodies – more likely to take puberty blockers or undergo irreversible surgery that can eliminate their ability to have children and increase their risk of suicide. 

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Parents deserve to know what their children are being taught in the classroom, and we owe them transparency. Under the noses of parents, California’s government codified indoctrination into state law.  The California Healthy Youth Act, which was signed in 2016, requires sexual health education to affirm radical gender ideology.  

But evading parents to provide so-called “gender-affirming” care has not led to better outcomes for gender-confused children. One private analysis of data gathered by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that the suicide rate spiked among 12-to-23-year-olds in states with minor access to puberty blocks and cross-sex hormones without parental consent relative to their contemporaries in states that limited children’s access to hormone treatment. While California is free to use state funds to finance its anti-human agenda, it is not entitled to the use of federal grant money.  

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The Trump administration stands with parents to protect children from content that contradicts commonsense biology and refuses to cosign California’s disturbing ideological experiment on children’s minds. Two months ago, we sent a letter to Governor Newsom demanding that he remove all references to gender ideology from PREP’s curricula. The letter warned that, should the government of California fail to comply within sixty days, the state would lose all PREP federal funding.  

On August 19, Newsom’s office replied to ACF with a letter stating that California “will not make any such modifications,” alleging that California PREP’s materials are “medically accurate” and compliant with all relevant statutes. Neither claim is true, and the governor should know better. As promised, Newsom’s brazen refusal to comply with federal law has resulted in the termination of California’s PREP grant. 

This is just the first step. The Department of Health and Human Services will uphold its statutory duty to ensure the content being taught in all state PREP courses is medically accurate and age appropriate. After conducting a thorough review of PREP curricula nationwide, we will put all noncompliant states on notice: follow the law, or risk losing your grant money. Education about prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections must no longer function as a conduit for radical gender ideology. Under President Trump, California will not receive federal funding for its subversive and dangerous indoctrination campaign.