One of the curricula funded by your tax dollars — a program called Positive Prevention Plus — defined gender identity to middle schoolers as "a person's deeply-felt sense of being male or female, or being something in-between." That was the federal government's idea of age-appropriate sex education under Joe Biden.
It isn't anymore.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced it is terminating 53 of 67 grants under the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, cutting $67 million in funding to organizations the department says pushed curricula that were "medically inaccurate," "age inappropriate," and "sexually explicit." The Office of Population Affairs conducted the review and concluded the Biden-era HHS had approved programs that violated the statute that created the TPP in the first place.
Positive Prevention Plus was just one of the offenders. The review flagged curricula with names like Wrap It Up, Love Notes, Be Proud Be Responsible, Making Proud Choices, and Plan A. Another program called SHARP and one titled Linking Families and Teens also made the list. These weren't fringe pilots in a single district. They were federally funded, multi-state grant programs operating in classrooms across the country.
The content went well beyond gender ideology. One curriculum described abortion to students as "a very safe procedure when done under medical supervision, with a major complication occurring less than one-quarter of 1%." Another told students that "if the pregnancy puts the person's health or life at risk, the person still can legally access abortion" — framing it as routine medical guidance rather than a contested legal and ethical question.
HHS isn't just pulling the plug. The department issued two new notices of funding opportunity for organizations aligned with what it calls a "common-sense, biological approach" to sex education. The first asks for applications for projects that "rigorously evaluate promising interventions that contribute to adolescent optimal health and preventing teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, behavioral risk factors underlying teen pregnancy, or other associated risk factors." The Office of Population Affairs intends to make approximately $8.3 million available for nine new grant awards.
That's a significant number to sit with. The old programs got $67 million. The replacements get $8.3 million. That's not just a policy shift — it's a statement about how much of the previous spending HHS considers defensible.
This follows action HHS took last year when it sent warning letters to 40 states and 5 territories demanding they remove all references to gender ideology from federally funded PREP — Personal Responsibility Education Program — materials. Acting Assistant HHS Secretary Andrew Gradison didn't leave much room for interpretation. "Federal funds will not be used to poison the minds of the next generation or advance dangerous ideological agendas," he said. "The Trump administration will ensure that PREP reflects the intent of Congress, not the priorities of the left."
States got 60 days to comply. California didn't. HHS stripped $12 million in PREP funds from the state.
The pattern is consistent. Biden's HHS approved the grants. Biden's HHS approved the curricula. Biden's HHS signed off on teaching children that biological sex is assigned rather than observed. Trump's HHS reviewed the same programs against the same statute and found them out of compliance.
Either the statute changed or the reading of it did. The statute didn't change.