4-H federally funded camps under fire for cabining kids, adult counselors by 'identity'
The Washington-area Center for Practical Federalism is calling on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which oversees 4-H youth programs that federally funded public universities across the country administer, to evaluate the programs' gender ideology standards.
The 4-H programs offer a host of activities for youth through more than 100 public universities across the country in areas including health, science, agriculture and civic engagement.
The Center for Practical Federalism is an arm of the nonprofit organization the State Policy Network, and seeks to provide resources to the American public and policymakers to educate them about federalism, and the balance between state and national politics to prevent government overreach.
The issue originated in 2017, when the National 4-H Council and USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture shared a "4-H Guidance for Inclusion of Individuals of all Gender Identities, Gender Expressions, Sexual Orientation and Sexes" on a USDA-managed website.
That guidance has since been rescinded, and the Trump administration issued an executive order in January instructing agencies to take "appropriate action to ensure that intimate spaces designated for women, girls, or females (or for men, boys, or males) are designated by sex and not identity."
But policies that allow 4-H attendees and adult chaperones to stay in overnight accommodations based on their gender ideology – rather than their biological sex – remain in place in multiple states, according to the Center for Practical Federalism.
"Now that the Trump administration has rescinded all prior federal policies advancing gender ideology and replaced them with a clear biological framework through Executive Order, it is essential to ensure that federal grantees, including land-grant universities running 4-H programs, bring their practices into alignment with the law," Tony Woodlief, the Center for Practical Federalism's senior executive vice president, said in a letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, obtained by Fox News Digital.
Specifically, the Center for Practical Federalism pointed to several instances where states have prioritized gender identity over biological sex for their 4-H programs. For example, the group alleged that, in 2022, the Rock Springs Ranch 4-H Camp in Kansas housed a person who was born a male but identified as a female in a cabin with preteen girls – without alerting the parents beforehand for consent. The Sentinel, a nonprofit news site that is a subsidiary of the free market think tank Kansas Policy Institute, also reported on the incident.
The Kansas 4-H Foundation has not updated its gender policy online since then, which claims to ban gender discrimination based on "gender identity" in areas including housing, according to the Center for Practical Federalism.
"The persistence of gender identity-based policies in 4-H programs shows how rescinded guidance can continue to shape policy and practice in violation of current federal directives," Woodlief said in the letter. "The situation at Rock Springs Ranch 4-H Camp in Kansas is a clear example of how these policies can conflict with parental rights and children's safety."
The Kansas 4-H Foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Other states have similar policies, according to the Center for Practical Federalism. For example, California and Oregon both espouse policies in official documents or in training materials for their 4-H programs that place participants and adult chaperones in overnight housing based on their gender identity, rather than biological sex, the group said.
The University of California's 4-H Youth Development Program did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital, nor did Oregon State's 4-H Youth Development Program.
As a result, the Center for Practical Federalism is requesting that the USDA conduct a review of all federally funded 4-H programs, land grant institutions and 4-H facilities to determine where rescinded gender ideology policies are still being enforced. Likewise, the group urges the USDA to institute formal standards "to prevent subregulatory guidance from circumventing lawful rulemaking."
"We also recommend that the Department use this case as a springboard for a broader, agency-wide audit of existing guidance documents, rescinding those that bypassed the regulatory process or are no longer necessary," Woodlief said in the letter.
The USDA did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
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