As part of his effort to rid the nation of woke ideology, President Donald Trump and his administration are warning schools to eliminate “gender ideology” material or face consequences. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and its Administration for Children and Families (ACF) announced last Tuesday that states implementing “gender ideology” material into federally-funded Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) courses have 60 days to remove the problematic material or lose those funds.

Acting Assistant HHS Secretary Andrew Gradison said in a statement, “Federal funds will not be used to poison the minds of the next generation or advance dangerous ideological agendas. The Trump Administration will ensure that PREP reflects the intent of Congress, not the priorities of the left.” He warned, “Accountability is coming.”

Currently, 40 states have “gender ideology” material in their PREP courses: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Washington, D.C. and five territories were also issued a warning.

Altogether, the 46 states, districts, and territories put “on notice” collect over $81.3 million annually from PREP. Some states, such as Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, or Wyoming, receive less than $1 million annually from PREP, while other states receive as much as $6 million.

Letters sent to the states, districts, and territories included details of the “gender ideology” being injected into PREP in those areas. In Alaska, for example, children are taught to define words like “transgender,” “two-spirited,” “pansexual,” and “transsexual.” Other examples include encouraging children to use “preferred pronouns,” discussing how “gender identity” can differ from a child’s “sex assigned at birth,” and even asking children questions like, “Why would someone with a penis not identify as a boy/man?” In many cases, the “gender ideology” being taught to children is similar across different states, largely because former President Joe Biden approved the use of “gender ideology” material in PREP programs. HHS said that the Biden administration “erred in allowing PREP grants to be used to teach students gender ideology.”

The HHS warning follows the agency’s decision to slash approximately $12 million in PREP funds going to California, after the Golden State refused to comply with the directive to strip “gender ideology” material from the program. “In a disturbing and egregious abuse of federal funds, California has been using taxpayer money to teach curricula that could encourage kids to contemplate mutilating their genitals, ‘altering their body… through hormone therapy,’ ‘adding or removing breast tissue,’ and ‘changing their name,’” HHS declared. “California’s refusal to comply with federal law and remove egregious gender ideology from federally funded sex-ed materials is unacceptable,” Gradison made clear. 

Other states have until October to decide if their push to embrace the Left’s transgender agenda is worth sacrificing taxpayer dollars. While proponents like SIECUS’s Alison Macklin insist the money is “essential” for supporting sex education and building “critical life skills for young people,” others criticize the program as a front for extreme LGBT indoctrination.

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster (R) praised the administration's decision to play hardball during a press gaggle last week. “The things they describe there really have got no business being in there,” he insisted. “Somebody has gone crazy somewhere trying to put all this stuff” in lessons.