The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) of President Donald Trump warned US states and territories that they must eliminate references to the “gender ideology” of the educational materials of K – 12 (basic and secondary schooling), or will lose federal financing.
El HHS He sent cards On August 26 to 40 states, Washington DC and five territories, in which it indicates that any state or territory that does not end the promotion of gender ideology in the implementation of the Education Program for Personal Responsibility (PREP) in the next 60 days will lose the federal funds of said program.
Receive the main news of ACI Press by WhatsApp and Telegram
It is increasingly difficult to see Catholic news on social networks. Subscribe to our free channels today:
States and territories receive together more than 81.3 million dollars Prep annual, with amounts ranging from several million to some hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The letters document numerous examples of “gender ideology” incorporated in the curricula of several states governed by both Democrats and Republicans.
For example, the letter sent to Vermont cites materials that define gender such as “ideas in a culture or society about the appropriate ways in which men and women must dress, behave, think and feel.” It also describes gender identity as “the internal understanding of people about what gender they identify”, which can be male, woman or “something that does not fit those labels.”
The letter to Washington points out material that states that a child’s “gender identity” can be different from “her sex assigned to birth” and argues that children begin to express aspects of their gender identity “between 18 months and 2 or 3 years” and that “they have a clear sense of their gender identity at 4 or 5 years.”
In South Dakota, the HHS letter refers to a “frequent question” in the course material: “Why did anyone with penis not identify as a child?” The answer indicates that body parts refer to “sex assigned to birth, which is different from gender” and defines gender as “the way people identify and express themselves.”
Many of the examples cited in the letters are the same in dozens of states, because several use the same teaching materials.
In its letters, the HHS recognizes that these curricula and programs had been previously approved during the administration of President Joe Biden, which – according to the new management – “erred by allowing PREP subsidies to be used to teach gender ideology to students.” Now, he says, these materials are “out of compliance” with the HHS regulations.
The HHS instructed the officials of each state that received the letter to modify their teaching plans and materials no later than Monday, October 27, so that the department can review them.
“Accountability is coming,” Andrew Gradison, HHS’s interim secretary, said on August 26.
“Federal funds will not be used to poison the minds of the next generation or to promote dangerous ideological agendas. The Trump administration will ensure that PREP reflects the intention of the Congress, not the priorities of the left,” he added.
The warnings arrive just five days after the HHS retired 12 million dollars in PREP funds To California for not stopping the promotion of gender ideology in its curriculum. The department had already warned the State in June that it would lose financing if it refused to make the necessary changes.
El HHS is applying Trump’s executive order of January 29 on the “end of radical indoctrination in basic and secondary education.” Administration defines gender ideology as a belief system that “replaces the biological sex category with a changing concept of self -assigned gender identity.”
According to administrationgender ideology allows “the false statement that men can identify themselves as women and, therefore, become them, and vice versa.” It also includes “the idea that there is a vast spectrum of genres disconnected from biological sex.”
Translated and adapted by ACI Press. Originally published in CNA.
Tyler Arnold
Tyler Arnold is a reporter of the National Catholic Register. He previously worked at The Center Square and has published in various media, including The Associated Press, National Review, The American Conservative and The Federalist.