The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has ordered Massachusetts to remove all references to gender identity from federally funded sex education materials within 60 days or face potential loss of up to $2,363,785 in federal funding.

The directive comes through the federal agency’s Administration for Children and Families as part of a nationwide review of the federal Personal Responsibility Education Program, known as PREP. Massachusetts is one of 46 states and territories that received letters last week requiring the removal of what the Trump Administration calls “gender ideology.”

Acting Assistant Secretary Andrew Gradison said in a press release that federal Personal Responsibility Education Program grants must reflect congressional intent.

“Accountability is coming,” Gradison said. “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.”

Massachusetts currently receives Personal Responsibility Education Program funding under federal grants issued in 2023, 2024, and 2025. On April 14, 2025, the state submitted its curricula and program materials for review after the federal Administration for Children and Families requested them. Federal officials said the review showed Massachusetts’s materials include “gender ideology which is not authorized by the statute.”

In a letter dated Tuesday, August 26 to Jill Clark of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the federal Administration for Children and Families cited passages from the state’s Personal Responsibility Education Program curricula that refer to pronoun sharing, gender identity, and gender-inclusive teaching practices.

Among the examples:

• “Asking participants to tell you their pronouns is a way of creating a safe space for transgender or gender nonconforming youth,” one curriculum said.
• Another section defined gender identity as “peoples’ inner understanding of what gender they identify with … It may be man, woman, something in between, or something that doesn’t fit these labels.”

Federal officials said those materials go beyond the Personal Responsibility Education Program’s authorizing statute at 42 U.S.C. § 713, which permits grants for teaching abstinence, contraception, and certain adulthood preparation subjects such as healthy relationships, financial literacy, parent-child communication, and career readiness.

“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,” the letter said. “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 PREP grant.”

The letter acknowledged that Massachusetts’s materials had been previously approved under a prior administration, but said that approval “erred in allowing PREP grants to be used to teach students gender ideology because that approval exceeded the agency’s authority.”

Massachusetts has until October 27, 2025 to comply by submitting revised curricula with all gender identity content removed. Failure to do so, federal officials warned, could lead to withholding, suspension, or termination of up to $2,363,785 in Personal Responsibility Education Program funding.

California’s Personal Responsibility Education Program funding was cut last week after the state failed to comply with a similar demand, according to the federal Administration for Children and Families.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health has not yet publicly responded to the letter.

Personal Responsibility Education Program funding is meant to provide sex education to adolescents, with an emphasis on preventing teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Massachusetts has participated in the federal program since its creation in 2010.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health could not be immediately reached for comment on Wednesday.