The Trump administration is reviewing the curriculum of a sex education program in California for medical accuracy and age appropriateness, a move that has sparked backlash from LGBTQ+ advocates worried about queer and transgender sexual health information being censored.
Last week, California was asked to submit all educational materials from its federally funded Personal Responsibility Education Program to the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, according to a news release from the administration.
The Department of Health provides $75 million in annual funding to PREP programs across the nation. The stated goal of these programs is to prevent adolescent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.
“As part of our radical transparency efforts, I will ensure the curriculum students are taught is age-appropriate and medically accurate,” said Andrew Gradison, ACF acting assistant secretary, in a statement on the curriculum review.
Jorge Reyes Salinas, spokesperson for LGBTQ+ civil rights organization Equality California, called Gradison’s statement misleading.
“This is not about curriculum transparency, it’s about censorship, plain and simple,” Salinas told The Times. “This investigation of California’s PREP program appears to be politically motivated and attempts to undermine the inclusive, medically accurate sex education services that serve our most vulnerable youth.”
California’s PREP program provides sexual health education to youths ages 10 to 19 with a focus on reaching those who are low-income, experiencing homelessness, in foster care, in the juvenile justice system or identify as LGBTQ+, according to the California Department of Public Health.
The department says California’s PREP curriculum has been shown to influence youth to delay sexual activity, increase condom or contraceptive use for those who are sexually active, and to reduce the number of sexual partners.
Salinas said he believes the administration’s probe into the curriculum is a thinly veiled attempt to erase mentions of the transgender community, transgender healthcare and different gender identities and pronouns.
“This is all part of their calculated political attack against transgender and nonbinary people,” he said.
In January, Trump issued an executive order saying that the government would only recognize two genders, male and female, effectively erasing federal recognition of transgender people. His administration has weakened nondiscrimination protections under the Affordable Care Act, giving healthcare providers and insurers more leeway to deny services to transgender individuals.
Trump has also challenged a new California law that prevents school districts from notifying parents if their child asks to use a different name or pronoun in the classroom.
Attention was drawn to California’s PREP program last week, when the Daily Mail published an article stating that its curriculum discussed role-plays “which present same-gender couples and discuss the use of sexual aids.”
This article was circulated by Trump Deputy Assistant Alex Pfeiffer, who said in a post on X that California is “using taxpayer money to teach kids about sex toys and role playing.” The California Department of Public Health did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the accuracy of this claim.
Salinas called the comment “ridiculous,” saying that the point of California’s PREP program is to provide valuable lessons on abstinence, contraception, sexually transmitted infections, and healthy relationships and decision-making.
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