The Trump administration, which includes people both accused of and adjudicated for sex crimes and also people with ties to Jeffrey Epstein, is seeking more control over how American children are taught about sex.

An authoritarian edict out of the Department of Health and Human Services threatened to withhold millions of dollars in federal funding from nearly every U.S. state and territory unless they censor their federally backed sexual education programs by scrubbing references to “gender ideology” within 60 days.

This relates to a story I wrote about in June, when HHS threatened to rescind millions of dollars that had been authorized for California’s Personal Responsibility Education Program, which supports initiatives meant to prevent teen pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. The federal government demanded that the California program remove “all gender ideology references” — including, but not limited to, all references to transgender people. Last week, HHS announced that it had pulled California’s funding.

Recommended

Latest

HHS agency threatens funding for California sex ed program over ‘gender ideology’

Ja’han Jones

Latest

Trump administration backs down in dispute with Maine over trans athletes

Clarissa-Jan Lim

And now HHS has threatened similar funding in 40 states and six territories, along with Washington, D.C., if they don’t censor their own programs.

As I wrote in June, this is all part of a deeply anti-scientific crusade to deny the existence of trans people, in defiance of the numerous reputable medical associations whose experts say otherwise. And in this case, HHS is basically telling states it will inhibit their ability to combat the scourges of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases unless these states adopt the administration’s warped and demonstrably wrong views on gender.