Judge blocks Trump's policy on “gender ideology”

According to Fox News, Federal Judge Beryl Howell has blocked key parts of President Donald Trump's executive order requiring states to remove content related to “gender ideology” from their sex education curricula (or else lose federal funding).

The judge said the measure was purely politically motivated, without any professional analysis, and went against the law, which emphasizes the need for evidence-based programs.

Trump's executive order, issued immediately after his inauguration in January 2025, stipulated that the federal government recognizes only two biological sexes—male and female—with these categories being immutable and determined at conception.

In practice, terms such as “gender identity” or the ability to indicate one's gender in documents according to gender perception would disappear, meaning that the federal government would no longer recognize transgender people.

The order also called for the termination of funding for all programs that support “gender ideology” and the deletion of content in documents that refer to it.

Judge Howell described the requirements of the new policy as unclear and unenforceable for organizations that receive federal grants for teen pregnancy prevention or other educational activities. Organizations such as Planned Parenthood argued that they could not meet the new conditions. The court therefore suspended the validity of these parts of the regulation throughout the United States.

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