It’s now up to local boards to stop local tax money from being used for the same.
HARRISBURG, Pa. – The Trump Administration has put Pennsylvania on notice: gender ideology that ignores biology has no place in federally funded education.
In a letter dated August 26, 2025, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through its Administration for Children and Families (ACF), informed Pennsylvania’s Department of Health that its current Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) curriculum is out of compliance with federal law. The letter, addressed to Kathy Jo Stence, Director of the Department of Health, demands that all references to gender ideology be stripped from sex education materials within 60 days or risk losing federal funding.
This action is part of a sweeping national crackdown in which 46 states and territories—including Pennsylvania—were directed to remove similar content from PREP curricula. Just last week, the Trump Administration terminated California’s PREP grant entirely after the state refused to comply.
What the Letter Says
The Pennsylvania letter identifies explicit examples of objectionable content from programs such as Making Proud Choices! and Be Proud! Be Responsible! These curricula included lessons on gender identity, pronoun usage, and LGBTQ+ ideological terminology—material that ACF says exceeds PREP’s authorizing statute.
The letter highlights passages that teach students to “describe their own identity using affirming terms,” encourage the sharing of pronouns including “hir” and “zir,” and use visual aids like the widely discredited “Genderbread Person” to distinguish between biological sex and gender identity. ACF made clear that such topics are “not allowable, reasonable, or allocable” to PREP funding and must be removed immediately.
“Pennsylvania’s current PREP curricula and program materials are out of compliance,” wrote Acting Assistant Secretary Andrew Gradison. “Failure to comply will result in enforcement action, including the withholding or termination of federal PREP funding.”
Planned Parenthood’s Influence in Pennsylvania Schools
This development comes on the heels of mounting concerns over Planned Parenthood’s role in shaping school sex education in Pennsylvania. Earlier this year, investigative journalist Meg Brock revealed how Planned Parenthood Keystone partnered with the Reading School District to push LGBTQ+ clubs and sex-ed infused with gender ideology. Activities included “Condom Olympics” and painting naked transgender bodies—all approved by the school board despite strong parental objections.
Documents showed that Planned Parenthood began its partnership with Reading in 2022, expanding into middle schools by 2023. Parents were given only opt-out forms, raising alarms about transparency and the age-appropriateness of the content. Even more concerning, the LGBTQ+ after-school club—called The Spectrum—operated under a confidentiality policy barring students from telling their parents what went on inside.
Planned Parenthood’s Political Agenda
As we reported on January 3, 2025, Planned Parenthood is no longer satisfied with simply running sex education programs—it is actively seeking to shape who sits on local school boards. After dabbling in the 2023 Manheim Township elections, where every Planned Parenthood-backed candidate won, the organization announced its intention to expand involvement in 2025 school board races statewide.
Why? Because controlling school boards means controlling curricula, textbooks, after-school programming, and even whether school-based “health centers” provide referrals for abortions or puberty blockers. Planned Parenthood has been explicit about its strategy: normalize early sexual activity, promote transgender ideology, and in the process, create future clients for its abortion facilities and its growing business in cross-sex hormones.
Federal and Local Clash
The Trump Administration’s PREP directive is a direct response to these kinds of programs. Congress created PREP to educate adolescents on teen pregnancy prevention, focusing on abstinence and contraception. It also aims to support a healthy transition to young adulthood by addressing congressionally mandated subjects such as healthy relationships and life skills like financial literacy.
The Prep program was not to be used to advance radical ideologies and false harmful ideas about gender. Yet in Pennsylvania, officials used the money to insert and teach gender ideology in the curriculum instead. For them, why teach financial literacy when you can spend the class time teaching that a man becomes a woman simply by believing it to be so?
The new order from HHS may finally provide a check on these efforts. Pennsylvania now faces a choice: comply with the mandate to strip gender ideology from its PREP programs—or forfeit millions in federal funds.
Why This Matters for Families
For parents across Pennsylvania, the controversy is more than just bureaucratic paperwork. It underscores a bigger battle over who gets to shape the moral and cultural environment in which children are raised—parents, or outside groups with an ideological agenda.
Planned Parenthood’s influence is not limited to Reading or Lancaster County. From Bucks County’s taxpayer-funded “Rainbow Room” youth program to proposed school-based health centers in urban districts, the abortion giant is has shifted their business model into the working overtime to promote and normalize sexual experimentation and gender confusion among children.
The Trump Administration’s move shines a national spotlight on this issue, but it will take more than federal oversight to protect Pennsylvania’s children. Local school boards wield immense authority in approving curricula, partnerships, and programs.
Planned Parenthood knows it. That’s why they are putting resources into school board elections this year.
A Call to Action
Pennsylvania families cannot sit this one out. Every school board election matters. If pro-family voters do not show up, Planned Parenthood’s endorsed candidates will—and they will bring with them an agenda that undermines parental rights and erodes the truth about biology and human sexuality.
The letter from HHS makes clear: gender ideology has no place in federally funded education. Now, Pennsylvania parents, board members, teachers, and voters must ensure it has no place in our school curriculum at all. There is only a finite amount of time in the school day, and valuable things are being left out of the curriculum because activists want to use schools as ideological indoctrination centers.
The upcoming school board elections across the Commonwealth will determine whether Planned Parenthood’s agenda advances—or whether families reclaim their rightful role in guiding their children’s education.
The choice lies with us.
