Tennessee’s “Sex Education” Courses Are Teaching Radical Gender Ideology
Sep 17, 2025 by FACT
Did you know radical gender ideology is being taught in Tennessee public schools, all under the guise of “sex education”?
Tennessee was one of 40 states to receive a letter from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and its Administration for Children and Families (ACF) instructing them to remove biologically inaccurate teachings from the “PREP” curriculum within 60 days or risk losing their federal grant.
“Accountability is coming,” Acting Assistant HHS Secretary Andrew Gradison wrote. “Federal funds will not be used to poison the minds of the next generation or advance dangerous ideological agendas.”
The letter from ACF itemizes several instances of radical gender ideology being promoted in Tennessee’s Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP), which is a federally funded “sex education” course. In addition to teachers sharing with students that “sexuality is a personal experience and will be different for everyone,” the letter highlights the following passage:
There is no scientific basis for these statements – they are rooted in skewed political ideology that has no place in our public schools.
“Gender ideology is not supported by the weight of science, and thus cannot inform adult preparation subjects … such as healthy relationships, healthy attitudes and values about adolescent growth and development of health life skills,” HHS wrote in a separate letter.
ACF instructed Tennessee to “remove all content concerning gender ideology from its curricula, program materials and any other aspects of its program within 60 days of receipt of this letter and provide a copy of the modified materials to ACF for approval.” If the state fails to comply, HHS will terminate all PREP grants to Tennessee. Over $14.4 million in funding was already pulled from California after the state refused to modify its PREP curriculum.
We’re thankful the Trump administration is taking action to protect public school students from radical gender ideology in sexual education courses, but in an ideal world, these programs would teach students about abstinence, the value of marriage, and the importance of the traditional family unit.
“Today's young people face strong peer pressure to engage in risky behavior and must navigate media and popular culture that endorse and even glamorize permissiveness and casual sex. Alarmingly, the government implicitly supports these messages by funding programs that promote contraception and ‘safe-sex,” a 2010 study from the Heritage Foundation found. “In FY2008, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spent $610.1 million on such programs targeting teens–at least four times what it spent on abstinence education.”
Removing radical gender ideology from “sex education” is step one. Rethinking how we teach children about marriage, family, and children is step two.
Tennessee was one of 40 states to receive a letter from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and its Administration for Children and Families (ACF) instructing them to remove biologically inaccurate teachings from the “PREP” curriculum within 60 days or risk losing their federal grant.
“Accountability is coming,” Acting Assistant HHS Secretary Andrew Gradison wrote. “Federal funds will not be used to poison the minds of the next generation or advance dangerous ideological agendas.”
The letter from ACF itemizes several instances of radical gender ideology being promoted in Tennessee’s Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP), which is a federally funded “sex education” course. In addition to teachers sharing with students that “sexuality is a personal experience and will be different for everyone,” the letter highlights the following passage:
When we use body parts to describe people, we’re talking about ‘biological sex,’ or sex assigned at birth, which is different than gender. Gender is how people identify and express themselves. Transgender people are people whose gender identity is different from their biological sex or sex assigned at birth. Gender nonconforming and non-binary people are people whose gender identities are not exclusively either boy/man or girl/woman. However someone identifies, they should feel safe, respected, and included in TOP.
There is no scientific basis for these statements – they are rooted in skewed political ideology that has no place in our public schools.
“Gender ideology is not supported by the weight of science, and thus cannot inform adult preparation subjects … such as healthy relationships, healthy attitudes and values about adolescent growth and development of health life skills,” HHS wrote in a separate letter.
ACF instructed Tennessee to “remove all content concerning gender ideology from its curricula, program materials and any other aspects of its program within 60 days of receipt of this letter and provide a copy of the modified materials to ACF for approval.” If the state fails to comply, HHS will terminate all PREP grants to Tennessee. Over $14.4 million in funding was already pulled from California after the state refused to modify its PREP curriculum.
We’re thankful the Trump administration is taking action to protect public school students from radical gender ideology in sexual education courses, but in an ideal world, these programs would teach students about abstinence, the value of marriage, and the importance of the traditional family unit.
“Today's young people face strong peer pressure to engage in risky behavior and must navigate media and popular culture that endorse and even glamorize permissiveness and casual sex. Alarmingly, the government implicitly supports these messages by funding programs that promote contraception and ‘safe-sex,” a 2010 study from the Heritage Foundation found. “In FY2008, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spent $610.1 million on such programs targeting teens–at least four times what it spent on abstinence education.”
Removing radical gender ideology from “sex education” is step one. Rethinking how we teach children about marriage, family, and children is step two.
