Judge Sides With States, Including Michigan, Blocking Removal Of Gender Identity From Sex Ed Grants

Michigan Advance

October 30, 2025

A federal judge in the District of Oregon issued a preliminary injunction on Tuesday preventing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from requiring states, including Michigan, to remove any reference to gender identity from two teen reproductive and sexual health education programs.

The two programs, the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) grant and the Title V Sexual Risk Avoidance Education (SRAE) grant, are designed to “provide sexual health education that is ‘evidence-based,’ ‘medically accurate and complete,’ ‘age-appropriate,’ and ‘culturally appropriate.’

Lawyers for the Department of Health and Human Services argued that removing gender identity from the curricula from these programs would meet the statutory requirement to make the information “medically accurate and complete.” The court pushed back against this statement, citing a broad consensus among the medical community that gender identity and biological sex are distinct.

“The Court also does not agree that the concept of gender identity ‘fall[s] outside the core medical and biological content that is central to sexual-risk education’,” the order granting the injunction read. “A curriculum that denies the existence of transgender and gender diverse people is not medically accurate and complete.”

The state of Michigan, one of the plaintiffs in the case, was facing a loss of nearly $3.4 million in grant funding for the Personal Responsibility Education Program after HHS threatened to pull the funding, according to a press release from Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office. The grant funds programming at 25 school buildings and 8 community-based organizations in Michigan.

“This unlawful action by the Trump Administration would have put the health and safety of our kids at risk,” Nessel said in the release. “For trans youth, who already face higher rates of bullying, isolation, and health disparities, this attempt to erase their very existence from educational programs was not just cruel but dangerous. I will continue to fight against illegal measures that jeopardize the well-being of Michiganders.”

The states’ original court filing also included the argument that requiring the removal of any mention of gender identity would be in violation of Michigan’s Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act, which includes sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression as protected characteristics under the law.

District Judge Ann Aiken wrote in her order granting the injunction that, “In Michigan, the ‘loss of PREP funding would threaten Michigan’s historic reductions in teen pregnancy, as the program is central to the state’s prevention strategy’.”

The states also argued that, since the funding for this program is appropriated by Congress, the Trump administration and the executive branch imposing new requirements on the funding was an overreach of authority. Aiken agreed.

“Absent congressional authorization, the Administration may not redistribute or withhold properly appropriated funds in order to effectuate its own policy goals,” she wrote in the opinion. “The Appropriations Clause does not provide the Executive branch a tool that it can use to thwart Congress’s will. Quite the opposite.”

The press release from Nessel’s office concurred with that finding.

“Congress created the grant program with clear statutory requirements that are at direct odds with the Trump Administration’s baseless insistence that gender is absolute, fixed, and binary, and that any reference to transgender status or gender identity must be erased altogether,” the release stated.

While a final decision in the suit still has yet to be issued, the injunction will ensure that funding for the programs continues until that decision comes. Aiken also stated in her order that she believes the plaintiffs' states are “likely to succeed” on the merits of their claim.

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