HHS removes LGBTQ+ 'gender ideology' from teen pregnancy program
The Department of Health and Human Services policy, announced in a July 1 memo to grantees, bans grant-funded programs from teaching about sex that is not heterosexual vaginal intercourse. It also bans "the eroticization of birth control methods" and bans any content on creating more pleasurable sexual experiences.
The policy goes on to prohibit any discussion of youth experiencing gender dysphoria or expressing transgender identities.
"The statute does not require, support, or authorize teaching minors about (ideological) content, including the radical ideological claim that boys can identify as girls and vice versa," the memo to grant recipients says. "Programs must be aimed at reducing teen pregnancy, not instructing in such ideological content."
Public health experts say the move could further stigmatize LGBTQ+ youth, who have higher rates of teen pregnancy than their heterosexual peers, and often feel less comfortable speaking to parents or health care providers about sex.
Emily Hilliard, the press secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement that the new policy "ensures that taxpayer dollars no longer support content that undermines parental rights, promotes radical gender ideology, or exposes children to sexually explicit material under the banner of public health."
Corina T. Lelutiu-Weinberger, an associate professor of health sciences research at Columbia University in New York, said teen pregnancy rates are already disproportionately high among bisexual girls, so making it harder to talk about their sexual behavior puts them at higher risk.
A 2018 study published by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that bisexual girls had "nearly five times the risk of teen pregnancy, and those who identified as mostly heterosexual or lesbian had about twice the risk compared to teens who were completely heterosexual." Most of the disparity was explained by physical, emotional or sexual abuse.
Lelutiu-Weinberger said youth tend to figure out their sexuality alone because they don't want to talk about it with their parents. She said LGBTQ+ people also tend to have a harder time talking about sex with health care providers, who often are not comfortable about talking about sex, or may have their own biases.
"There is a lot of discomfort and mislabeling and often there are no conversations," Lelutiu-Weinberger said. "And both parties are uncomfortable bringing it up because of fear of stigma."
Amelia Stanton, a Boston University professor and investigator for the Sexual, Reproductive and Mental Health Disparities Program, said the changes don't align with science or promote the best interest of public health.
"If we're limiting that information, we're not offering tools for planning," Stanton said. "We're not offering the opportunity to really learn how to prevent STIs or how to have agency in sexual activity."
Stanton said heterosexual intercourse might align more with traditional values, but failing to teach kids about oral sex, anal sex and other sexual behavior that carries risk for sexually transmitted infections will cause the rates of those infections to increase.
Nearly half the nation's cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis in 2023 were reported in people 15 to 24, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Infections were disproportionately high among men who had sex with men.
Shanker, the former Biden aide, said that Congress created the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program in 2010 under President Barack Obama to replace an abstinence-only sex education model in place under President George W. Bush.
"We have a comprehensive program that's highly effective, and they're tinkering with it for political purposes instead of trying to achieve public health results for the American people," Shanker said.
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The National
8 hours ago
- The National
People are using slurs we thought we left in the 70s
Celebrating its 10th birthday a few weeks ago, it looked back on real achievements reflecting this country's embrace of a more progressive future. Thanks to its efforts, LGBTQ school pupils are able to feel more recognised in our education system. TIE has expanded from an organisation campaigning against the prejudice and bullying faced by [[LGBT]]Q pupils to one with its own staff creating resources and training for teachers on behalf of the Scottish Government. At the heart of its success is a deep friendship between a young gay man and an older, straight trade unionist, which sparked the energy needed to power real change. READ MORE: Labour's governing fiasco shows Scots the urgency of independence, says John Swinney That friendship was rightly celebrated at TIE's 10th birthday party, but the smiles were tinged with an unease over a rise in right-wing rhetoric, which has more recently threatened to undermine some of the advances TIE has made. 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One of my mum's friends told me about this guy who was involved in politics and was organising a food bank fundraiser. When I contacted him, Liam and I clicked very quickly. We were both passionate about issues related to poverty. It was the start of a very fast friendship. Liam: My activism at that time was trying to promote the message of what an independent socialist Scotland could look like, and what people should be striving for. After the agonising defeat in 2014 I remember thinking that this isn't done; there's going to be another go at this in the future. For me, this was about a better Scotland. It was about an opportunity to try and wipe the slate clean and ask what would a new country look like, and how do we start going about building that? After the referendum I accepted a random friend request from Jordan on Facebook. Back then I was really self-conscious, even more so than I am now. I was 36 years old, a petrol tanker driver and a trade unionist. 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So were the National Parent Forum and the Scottish Catholic [[Education]] Service, the Scottish Human Rights Commission and Cosla. We both had real impostor syndrome. Liam was still working nightshift as a petrol tanker driver. I was working part-time in a bar at the time. I would finish there at 1am and work in my car outside my house because my little sister had just been born, so I couldn't go in and wake them up. Liam would be working nightshift and he would have a phone call on his headphones and we'd talk about what we would do, what we could ask for at a working group meeting the next morning. Nowadays we laugh about conspiratorial ideas suggesting that TIE is a quango that's been propelled along the way and been given all this money. The reality genuinely was two people who had to prove themselves time after time. 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I think we're seeing LGBT topics and education initiatives like ours being weaponised and misrepresented to distract from decades of consecutive economic failure that have made people's lives harder. In the United States, we see the impact of that disinformation and false claims such as 'children are being told to transition in schools'. We had that with Section 28. We've had that censorship. It's dangerous and it's damaging, and I think that we have to be very careful not to give credence to that type of rhetoric, to this idea that there's inappropriate or extreme teaching happening in schools. The reality of the situation is children are learning about same-sex families alongside lots of other types of families. They're learning about the impact of homophobia that they already see and experience at school, and they're given factual information about historical events. We have to challenge these false narratives, these lies, with the truth. Liam: Allyship is also very important, where people who are not members of minorities stand up against those who attack them. We're currently living in a period in which truth doesn't matter. Before truth has brushed its teeth, the lies are two times around the world. People are using slurs that we thought we left in the 1970s and 1980s and maybe at the start of the 1990s about LGBT people being predators and being paedophiles and being people who can't be trusted to be positive influences around young people. Some of this stuff leads to people like me and Jordan having rapid response alerts on our properties for the police so that if we dial 999 and give an address, every officer in the vicinity has to drop their stuff and get to a property, because we are viewed by the police as vulnerable to harm simply because we want all children to go to school and to learn in an environment where they're safe, respected and protected.
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The Independent
a day ago
- The Independent
An LGBTQ+ cafe's neon sign became a beacon for hate in Berlin
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