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Multiple states are jointly suing the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and its Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., over new rules restricting what can be taught in sexual education classes, including lessons that acknowledge the existence of transgender people.
Last month, the Trump administration threatened to cut funding to states that acknowledge transgender or nonbinary people in their sex ed classes. The cuts would affect access to funds from two vital government programs — the Sexual Risk Avoidance Education (SRAE) program and the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP).
The funding limitations could affect children’s education in places with high teenage birth rates, potentially leading to higher numbers of teen pregnancies. Funding cuts could also limit education for kids who are unhoused or in the foster care system.
In its warning that was published in August, HHS told 46 states and territories that their funding was in danger of being withheld due to lessons that included discussion of transgender people. The department baselessly claimed that teaching so-called “gender ideology” would “poison the minds of the next generation,” a reference to the false “social contagion” hypothesis that wrongly asserts children are only coming out as transgender or nonbinary because it is a fad.
Arguments based on the social contagion theory “[do] not hold up to scrutiny and should not be used to argue against the provision of gender-affirming medical care for adolescents,” wrote Alex S. Keuroghlian, former director of the National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center at The Fenway Institute, in a study published in 2022.
Minnesota, Washington, and Oregon are leading a total of 16 states and Washington D.C. in the lawsuit against the administration over the funding cuts. The suit alleges that at least $35 million, perhaps more, could be withheld from sex ed programs within those states.
The administration has already cut funding to California due to its curriculum that includes acknowledgment of transgender and nonbinary people. HHS withdrew $12 million in PREP funds after the state refused to change its lesson plans.
The lawsuit claims that “HHS’s actions directly contradict the statutes creating these programs,” and that “PREP and SRAE require federally funded sexual health education content be ‘medically accurate and complete,’ ‘culturally appropriate’ or provided in the appropriate ‘cultural context,'” per federal law.
“Forcing Plaintiff States to remove medically supported, complete, and culturally appropriate content in the materials for PREP and SRAE is contrary to the laws that Congress adopted and is arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act,” the states’ lawsuit contends.
By potentially withholding funds over lessons that acknowledge transgender people, the states are “irreparably harm[ed],” the suit continues, adding that they are collectively forced “into an impossible position: lose critical funding for sexual health education programs, or violate federal and state laws requiring medically accurate, non-discriminatory information within those programs.”
“Either course will harm the very at-risk adolescents and public health goals these programs are designed to protect,” the lawsuit adds.
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