Through the Static

By Hannah Saunders

In September, 16 states and the District of Columbia launched a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) over threats to strip funding for two sexual health education programs unless states removed gender-inclusive language from its education materials. On October 27, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction, allowing the states and District to protect and uphold public health.

The programs are the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP), which informs students on how to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and the Sexual Risk Avoidance Education Program (SRAE); annually, Washington receives $2.6 million in funding for the PREP program. Washington, Oregon, and Minnesota are co-leading the lawsuit.

“The judge found HHS’ policy stigmatizes students, exacerbates mental health risks for vulnerable young people, and is not medically accurate,” Washington Attorney General Nick Brown said. “An immediate injunction was the only way to make sure the federal government couldn’t get away with such cruelty.”

In a recent, first-of-its-kind study released by the Trevor Project, LGBTQIA+ youth continue to face high levels of stigma and political rhetoric, and how Queer youth are treated has a direct impact on their mental health and well-being. The study concluded that supportive networks and actions, including inclusive spaces, improved mental health outcomes and reduced the risk of suicide over time.

All plaintiffs in the lawsuit, including Colorado; Connecticut; Maine; Delaware; Hawai’i; Illinois; Massachusetts; Maryland; Michigan; New York; New Jersey; Rhode Island; and Wisconsin provide sexual health education materials that have language that is inclusive of students of all gender identities and sexual orientations, which is not only based on medical research, but is also what Trump calls “radical gender ideology.”

The court determined that plaintiffs were likely to win arguments that state HHS’s threats to strip funding violate the federal Administrative Procedure Act and the Constitution. The court found that Congress had clear statutory requirements when creating the grant programs, which go against the Trump regime’s claims that gender is binary and gender identities must be erased, and that without passing the injunction, the ability for plaintiff states to protect public health would have been compromised.

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