The state of California must remove from federally funded sexual education curricula all gender ideology references that “indoctrinate” students, according to a notice from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services last week. 

The order intends to reform California’s “egregious” academic resources that teach “gender identity is distinct from biological sex and that boys can identify as girls,” according to the Administration for Children and Families.   

The Administration for Children and Families is the agency within HHS responsible for administering federal grants to states to provide sex education programming for youth.  

The agency sent a letter to the state on June 20, citing specific examples in which California’s curricula did not coincide with federal law. One such example instructed educators to “remind students that some men are born with female anatomy, some women are born with male anatomy.”  

Agency officials claimed, “The educational materials promoting gender ideology have nothing to do with Personal Responsibility Education,” the sex education grant program, and, therefore, will not be federally funded.  

According to the Family and Youth Services Bureau website, “PREP [the Personal Responsibility Education Program] is a $75 million per year federal grant program that teaches youth ages 10-19 about abstinence and contraception, aimed at preventing adolescent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. Federal law requires the content taught in PREP classes to be both medically accurate and age appropriate.” The bureau is an office within the agency, and it requested that all states participating in the grant program submit their curricula to the bureau for review.  

The Trump administration has promised that all Personal Responsibility Education Program materials will be “free from gender ideology content.” 

Acting Assistant Secretary at the Administration for Children and Families Andrew Gradison said, “The disturbing gender ideology content in California’s PREP materials is both unacceptable and well outside the program’s core purpose. ACF remains committed to radical transparency and providing accountability so that parents know what their children are being taught in schools.” 

The state of California has 60 days to remove all gender ideology references from the curricula, or else it could lose its grant funding, the letter stated.