Here’s the thing: while most of the national conversation has been locked onto battles over gender identity, critical race theory, and parental rights, another fight has been unfolding with far less attention—and it’s one the Trump administration has decided to tackle head-on.
This summer, the Department of Health and Human Services quietly redirected millions of taxpayer dollars away from a number of federally funded Teen Pregnancy Prevention programs and toward curricula centered on abstinence, marriage, and what officials call sexual risk avoidance. It didn’t generate the kind of headlines that usually dominate cable news, but for supporters of the move, that’s exactly what makes it such a significant policy shift.
The New York Times eventually reported on the funding cuts, focusing largely on nonprofit organizations that said they were caught off guard after losing grants. But supporters of the administration argue there was plenty of warning. During President Trump’s first term, dozens of similar grants were eliminated as part of a broader effort to remove federal support from programs the administration argued promoted what it described as “radical leftist ideology.” According to the administration at the time, 53 grants were canceled, saving roughly $67 million.
Now the policy has returned with a fresh set of priorities.
The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health has issued guidance stating that federally funded adolescent programs must use age-appropriate materials and avoid promoting what the administration calls gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology. The guidance also says federally funded programs should not include material depicting or encouraging sexually explicit content or normalizing sexual activity among minors.
And there’s another major piece of the puzzle.
The department says it will also prioritize protecting parental rights, including parents’ ability to shield their children from educational content that conflicts with their religious beliefs.
That’s a dramatic shift from the direction many federally funded sex education programs had taken over the past decade.
According to The New York Times, organizations seeking federal grants under the new standards must teach abstinence as the only method that completely prevents teen pregnancy. The guidelines also emphasize marriage, procreation, and protecting fertility while placing far less emphasis on topics involving sexual orientation or gender identity.
Not surprisingly, the reaction has been immediate.
Some of the organizations that lost funding have criticized the new requirements and, according to the Times, several have filed lawsuits challenging the changes.
Supporters of the administration, meanwhile, argue taxpayers should not be required to fund programs they believe conflict with their values.
Quena González of the Family Research Council told The Washington Stand that the complaints themselves reveal how far federal sex education has drifted. He argued that taxpayers should not be paying for programs that assume teenagers will become sexually active and focus primarily on reducing risks instead of encouraging abstinence.
He also criticized classroom instruction covering topics such as sexual consent, contraceptive methods, and long-acting birth control for younger students, arguing those subjects are inappropriate for middle school classrooms. González said sex should instead be presented as a meaningful part of adult relationships within marriage.
Longtime abstinence education advocate Valerie Huber says the administration is finally treating sexual behavior the same way public health officials approach other risks facing teenagers.
“For years,” she told The Washington Stand, “sexual risk avoidance had to justify itself while the alternative was funded as though its results were settled.”
Huber compared the issue to anti-smoking campaigns.
“We do not teach teenagers to smoke carefully,” she said. “We tell them the truth about risk.”
She argues that sexual health education abandoned that model by emphasizing risk reduction over risk avoidance and believes the new HHS priorities restore consistency.
Huber also criticized previous federally funded programs for, in her view, elevating outside organizations while minimizing parents’ role in guiding their children through sensitive issues.
Although teen pregnancy rates have declined over the years, Huber contends those numbers alone fail to capture broader concerns. She argues policymakers have focused heavily on birth rates while paying less attention to infections, coercion, and other measures of adolescent well-being.
Another supporter of the administration’s approach, Dr. Michelle Cretella, points to research she says demonstrates the potential of sexual risk avoidance education. She argues abstinence remains the only method that completely prevents both pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases while maintaining that effective abstinence-based programs can still provide medically accurate information about contraception for students who are already sexually active.
Critics, however, argue comprehensive sex education better prepares students with practical information about contraception, disease prevention, and healthy relationships. That disagreement remains at the heart of the current political and legal battle over federal funding.
