Feds could cut Ohio’s tax dollars over transgender references in education materials
In a Jan. 25, 2018, photo, Dierra Rowland, 19, of Philadelphia, studies at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania library in Indiana, Pa., near a shelf of books marked with red stickers, meaning they might be removed from the shelves. IUP is planning to remove tens of thousands of books that have little or no readership. (AP Photo/Michael Rubinkam)
The federal government could slash federal tax dollars if Ohio’s youth prisons don’t remove references to transgender people from sexual education materials, The Columbus Dispatch reported.
The Department of Health and Human Services, through its Administration for Children and Families, alerted 40 states, including Ohio, and six territories that they had 60 days to remove gender identity references from their Personal Responsibility Education Program, or PREP, materials.
The feds requested the information in an Aug. 26 letter to Chris Freeman, deputy director of facilities, programs, and operations for the Ohio Department of Youth Services. Ohio has until 11:59 p.m. on Oct. 27 to submit the revised curriculum to federal officials.
The Buckeye State could lose nearly $4.3 million.
“Accountability is coming,” Acting Assistant Secretary Andrew Gradison said in a release. “Federal funds will not be used to poison the minds of the next generation or advance dangerous ideological agendas. The Trump Administration will ensure that PREP reflects the intent of Congress, not the priorities of the left.”
On April 14, the Administration for Children and Families asked Ohio officials to provide curricula and programmatic materials in use or in any way relevant to the state PREP grant “for a medical accuracy review in accordance with the Terms and Conditions of the grant,” Gradison wrote.
However, federal authorities changed their “planned course of action and are no longer conducting a review for medical accuracy because the content that we were going to review for medical accuracy is outside of the subjects that are statutorily authorized in this program,” according to a footnote in Gradison’s letter.
State officials are complying with the federal request and updating materials accordingly.
“We are currently in the process of working to adapt the curriculum materials as instructed by the Trump administration and have been in communication with HHS on our progress,” DYS spokesman Aaron Mulvey told The Columbus Dispatch.
Last month, the Administration for Children and Families nixed California’s PREP grant after Golden State officials did not meet the federal government’s demand to remove gender ideology from the state’s educational materials.
The push is part of a larger move by the Trump administration targeting “gender ideology extremism.” However, LGBTQ+ advocates cried foul on the move to eliminate transgender references from sexual education materials, saying it will hurt kids.
“We know that the cruelty and erasure are the point,” Dara Adkison, executive director of TransOhio, told The Columbus Dispatch. “Making information about queer and trans existence harder for youth to access won’t make youth into people they aren’t. They still get to grow up into amazing queer and trans adults.”
Ohio Republicans have followed the lead of their federal counterparts, passing several measures that, depending on one’s outlook, are either a commonsense change or an all-out war on the transgender community.
For example, a seemingly minor provision in the state’s two-year budget would bar government entities, including libraries, from placing menstrual products in the men’s restrooms in public buildings. The new prohibition takes effect this month, and the reaction to the move depends on one’s politics.
Last year, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine signed a measure requiring that the state’s primary and secondary schools and higher education institutions designate restrooms for use only by biological males or females.
Senate Bill 104, the Protect All Students Act, sponsored by state Sens. Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, and Andrew Brenner, R-Delaware, mandated that multi-occupancy restrooms, changing rooms, locker rooms and overnight accommodations used by multiple students must be assigned for use by either male or female students.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of an Ohio Department of Youth Services employee who alleged “reverse discrimination.” The nation’s highest court struck down a ruling from a lower court that Marlean Ames could not sue the Ohio Department of Youth Services.
