Photo by Michael Crimmins/Glasgow News 1.
By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
Kentucky is among the 46 states and territories told to remove all references of gender ideology in its sex education materials or risk losing federal funding.
On Aug. 26, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — through its Administration for Children and Families — sent a letter to Jan Bright with the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Families demanding the removal of certain content areas or material that fall outside of the perimeters of the Personal Responsibility Education Program, which is “a program that is designed to educate adolescents on both abstinence and contraception for the prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS.”
“The statute includes no mention of gender ideology, which is both irrelevant to teaching abstinence and contraception and unrelated to any of the adult preparation subjects…the statute neither requires, supports nor authorizes teaching students that gender identity is distinct from biological sex or that boys can identify as girls and vice versa; thus, gender ideology is outside the scope of the authorizing statute and any expenditures associated with gender ideology are not allowable, reasonable, or allocable to the…grant,” the letter stated. “We are aware that these curricula and other program materials were previously approved…however, the prior administration erred in allowing [the] grants to be used to teach students gender ideology because that approval exceeded the agency’s authority to administer the program.”
The Barren River Initiative to Get Healthy Together — or BRIGHT coalition — released the community health assessment for 2025-28 that stated that roughly 2 percent of the 1,783 survey respondents identified as something other than male or female and 12 percent identified with a sexuality other than heterosexuality.
Failure to remove the “delusional ideology” by Monday, Oct. 27, could result in the federal government withholding, terminating or suspending the grant that totals $1.454 million.
Some of the curricula deemed inappropriate and marked for removal by the administration includes facilitator tips that encourages them “to support participants in sharing and listening to one another, and making sure dialogue remains respectful and inclusive,” and references to sexuality.
Kentucky law prohibits “any child, regardless of grade level, enrolled in [a school] district [from receiving] any instruction or presentation that has a goal or purpose of students studying or exploring gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation.”
The Kentucky Family Foundation voiced their support for the administration’s decision and called on Governor Andy Beshear to “purge all gender ideology from these educational programs,” adding that Kentucky’s General Assembly has the duty to “correct this egregious misuse of educational resources” if Beshear does not.
Beshear has not made a comment on the demand, but vetoed the 2023 Kentucky Senate Bill that the above language added to the Revised Statute and signed an executive order in 2024 banning conversion therapy in the commonwealth.
The administration terminated California’s grant after the state failed to meet its demand to remove gender ideology from its educational materials. States and territories receiving these new letters are now on notice, according to the cabinet.
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