California should submit its intercourse training curriculums to the Trump administration by Tuesday for an uncommon “medical accuracy review” that some LGBTQ advocates concern is a transfer by the administration to search out new methods to restrict gender-affirming care.
The investigation targets California’s implementation of the nationwide Private Accountability Training Program, a $75 million program that teaches youth and teenagers about abstinence and contraception to stop being pregnant and sexually transmitted infections. This system is overseen by the Administration for Kids and Households throughout the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Companies.
“As part of our radical transparency efforts, I will ensure the curriculum students are taught is age-appropriate and medically accurate,” stated Andrew Gradison, the company’s performing assistant secretary.
Alex Pfeiffer, deputy assistant to the president, posted on the social media platform X that California was “using taxpayer money to teach kids about sex toys and role playing,” linking to a DailyMail article with the identical headline.
The reason for the probe is disingenuous, stated Jorge Reyes Salinas, director of communications at Equality California, a nonprofit LGBTQ+ civil rights advocacy group.
“This is not about transparency. This is about censorship,” Salinas stated. “This attack by the federal administration is really about censorship and how to get rid of resources for people that need them the most. … And this is not just about eliminating conversations about gender-affirming care … but really about keeping people in the dark about health and personal sexual health.”
In California, the Private Accountability Training Program funds 22 companies — county well being departments, household useful resource facilities and Deliberate Parenthood — in 20 counties with the very best want for intercourse well being training and providers, in response to the state well being division. This system has reached over 40,000 youth all through the state since 2012.
Gradison didn’t elaborate on what, if any, considerations the company had with California’s program supplies. It stated Friday the request to evaluation California’s curriculum is “standard practice” however wouldn’t affirm whether or not it was the one state to obtain the request.
The company’s truth sheet on this system was inaccessible Monday.
The California Division of Public Well being stated in an announcement Friday that it might adjust to the request however didn’t reply to a query about whether or not that is the primary time the state has been requested to submit its supplies for evaluation.
The division receives probably the most grant funding of any recipient beneath this system — $5.8 million to show abstinence, protected intercourse practices and HIV-prevention to high-needs populations, together with LGBTQ youth, homeless youth, minorities, migrant farmworkers, foster youth and incarcerated youth. This system additionally teaches about forming wholesome relationships and life expertise and teaches “adolescent development,” together with bodily and reproductive improvement and id. This system’s curriculum consists of language affirming totally different gender identities, sexual orientations and LGBTQ youth.
The probe comes because the Trump administration has pursued efforts to focus on transgender protections. Since he took workplace in January, President Donald Trump has signed a number of anti-trans govt orders, together with orders that solely acknowledge two sexes, restrict gender-affirming remedies for youth and prohibit transgender gamers from taking part in highschool and faculty sports activities.
The administration has cracked down on California particularly, beginning six new investigations towards the state on Thursday, focusing on the state’s controversial transgender invoice prohibiting colleges from requiring employees to inform households if their baby makes use of a unique title or gender than on their faculty file, evaluating affirmative motion insurance policies at a handful of California universities and suppressing the state’s use of federal funding to help undocumented college students, amongst others.
Whereas state regulation requires that college students in grades 7-12 obtain sexual well being and HIV prevention training not less than as soon as in center faculty and as soon as in highschool, California doesn’t have a statewide intercourse training curriculum, so faculty districts, faculty boards and county workplaces of training are in control of selecting the course supplies taught in lecture rooms. The regulation states the fabric should meet core requirements and be age acceptable and medically correct. This materials just isn’t a part of the probe.
Intercourse training in California should embody all genders and sexual orientations, in addition to talk about gender id and expression.
Salinas stated he wasn’t conscious of the federal authorities ever reviewing state sexual training supplies however wasn’t stunned, primarily based on the manager orders which have already come from the Trump administration.
“This is a way to hold states’, and in particular California’s, federal money hostage to threaten taking away funding to change the narrative and to censor the most vulnerable groups,” Salinas stated. “This is part of their efforts to erase transgender people from history books (and) from society.”
Initially Printed: March 31, 2025 at 4:53 PM PDT
