Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Joining me from his home base in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Longtime Washington Redskins fan, as I have been as well.
Andrew Gradison is the Assistant Secretary for the Administration of
Children and Families at the Department of Health and Human
Services HHS as we know it, and.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Well, first of all, welcome to the show. It's good
to have you here.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Ross, it's great to join you. It's great to connect
with folks on the gridsta of Colorado. Thank you for
having me.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Yeah, glad to do it.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
So you personally, well, I shouldn't say you in your
professional role, but with your name attached to it. There's
a lot of stuff going on right now with the
Trump administration trying to get many states to modify what
they are what they are offering students in the world
(00:54):
of sex education. I see a press release that was
just put out earlier today Trump administration and puts forty
eight states, I'm sorry, forty six states and territories on
notice to remove gender ideology content from sex ed materials.
And I had seen a news story from a few
days earlier about specific efforts you're already making regarding California.
(01:15):
So let's just talk about what the issue is and
then I want to bring it to Colorado because I
do think Colorado, along with plenty of other states, is
probably in your cross heres a little bit if they
keep going with what the Trump administration thinks is inappropriate.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
So what's the issue.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
The issue is that the federal government, to the Department
of Health and Human Services, funds the Personal Responsibility Education Program.
This is sex ad. These are sex ed materials that
get put in front of children as young as kindergarten,
but some of the materials are geared towards middle school
or high school age children, and it's meant to teach
(01:54):
kids the benefits of it absence education. It's meant to
teach them the benefits of using contraception they don't get
sexually transmit diseases, and how to avoid risky behaviors. What
we found when we started looking into this is that
these materials weren't teaching about contraception or the benefits of
(02:14):
delaying sex and till marriage. They were teaching kids gender ideology.
They were teaching them that boys can be girls and
girls can be boys, and that gender is on a spectrum.
And they were actually telling the students and telling teachers
not to separate students into single sex groups for sex
(02:37):
ed where boys could learn about what's relevant to them
biologically and girls could learn about what's relevant to them
biologically in their peer groups. They said that that could
cause trauma to the students. So as we reviewed these materials,
we found that these sex ed materials weren't medically accurate,
they weren't age appropriate. But the states, forty six states
(03:01):
and territories, we're putting them in front of those students.
So what we did today was we put those states
on notice, and we are giving every state that has
ideological materials and their sex and curriculum sixty days to
correct and remove non medically accurate age inappropriate materials and
(03:22):
make sure that we're teaching young people the benefits of
abstinence and contraception without an ideological lens.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
So there are a lot of aspects to this conversation, right.
There's the science question and when we'll get to that
in a second, and who gets to decide what is
the science. There's the culture question, and then there's political question.
They're all very interesting and they're all i think, rather different.
But let's start with the science for a minute. And
(03:50):
you were talking about sort of non scientifically accurate, non
biologically accurate. Who gets to decide that? For example, you said,
or at least you implied, that gender is not on
a spectrum, right, And a lot of people say, you're
a boy or you're a girl, and that's it. A
lot of people believe that, but a lot of people
(04:11):
also there are a lot of other people who don't
believe that.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
So who gets to decide where that line is?
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Well, ultimately we're talking about fundamentals of biology, and who
decides that. It's our creator if nothing else. Now, as
far as reviewing the materials that get put in front
of students, the Department of Health and our Human Services
by law in the Personal Responsibility Education program. In the
prep program, we get to determine what's medically accurate and
(04:43):
age appropriate. We're allowed to review all of the materials
that get put in front of students and we send
them to a medical review board to determine appropriateness and
to determine if they're medically accurate. Unfortunately, many of these
be went through previous review boards and they said, no problem, nothing.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
To see here.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
But as under Secretary Kennedy's leadership and under leadership with
President Trump, we're actually taking a close look at these materials,
and what we're finding is materials that do not reflect
biological reality.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Is is this a situation that I talk about a
lot in many different contexts where if a state or
or anybody is going to take federal money, then they're
going to have to play by the federal rules. So
is that basically what's going on here?
Speaker 1 (05:34):
These are state is it?
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Are these state and local programs, but they're taking federal money,
and therefore if they want the federal money, they have
to abide by the rules imposed by the administration in
power at that time.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Yes, these are federal dollars, and if you're going to
accept federal dollars for a specific purpose, you have to
follow the rules that accompany them.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
So if Colorado is.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Going to receive one point one million of dollars to
fund its sex at curriculum, then they have to follow
the law. This is it's important. I want to make
this very clear. This isn't a new law, these aren't
new regulations, This isn't a change in policy. This is
the administration actually looking at and administering the law as
(06:21):
it was written and reviewing curriculum to make sure that
it conforms with that.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
So if a.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
School district in Colorado wants to continue to use gender
ideology and their sex at curriculum by all means, if
parents are comfortable with that, if they want to put
their students through that, they're allowed to. But the federal
government is not going to pay for it, not under
this program.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
We're talking with Andrew Gradison, HHS, Assistant Secretary for the
Administration of Children and Families at the Department of Health
and Human Services. As a parent myself, one of the
things I care about the most in this world that
we're talking about here is the age appropriateness stuff separate
from you know, what you're called gender ideology and all
(07:06):
that there's there can be a lot of stuff out
there even if the gender stuff were removed that might
still be age inappropriate.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
How much of that are you finding?
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Well, you're a parent, and if I'm fortunate enough, I
will be a parent one day, and I'm not sure
that I want my sixth grader to know that, to
be to be forced into a role play with someone
where they're supposed to play out as if they are transgender.
(07:40):
I'm not sure that at sixth grade it's ever going
to be age appropriate to tell students that it may
be traumatic to divide your classroom into boys and girls
so that you can receive proper education that will be
relevant to the changes that your body will go through
during puberty. So I have a lot of concerns, and
(08:03):
where we're finding those are just examples from Colorado what
we've seen, we've reviewed the curriculum and from ault of
these states. Some states, Washington State, for example, was teaching
children as young as kindergarten that boys can be girls
and girls can be boys. That's never going to be
appropriate because we're talking about five year olds who are
(08:23):
incredibly impressionable and don't know the world around them, and
you're teaching them something that doesn't comport with reality. So
I have huge concerns about the way federal funds have
been used under this program, and we're doing something about it.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
One of your colleagues sent me.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
A snippet of a what is described as a facilitator manual,
so something that a teacher would would read in order
to be able to do one of these classes in
order to properly and put on one of these classes.
From page one to twenty eight, of a Colorado Facilitator Manual.
Educator Note, for the course of the role play activities,
(09:02):
students will be in a position where they must role
play sexual pressure situations with classmates of both a different
and the same gender. This may be awkward for teams
who are sensitive to the suggestion of same sex romance,
for teams who identify as gay or lesbian, or for
teens who are transgender or gender non conforming. It's important
(09:25):
to address this situation directly and proactively.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
So I got a few things on that.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I don't know what age this thing was aimed at,
so you know, if I would think if this were
fifth or sixth graders, that would be particularly inappropriate. But
it also, you know, there's some issues there even for
older kids. And I'm curious of this one particular part
where they talk about for teens who are transgender or
gender non conforming, is.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
It your position?
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Is it HHS's position that there is no such thing?
Speaker 3 (09:57):
So you're talking about the All for You to second
edition Facilitator Manual that is used to educate teachers on
how they should perform sex ed in the classroom. These
materials are clearly out of bounds when it comes to
the statute. I'll say that, and then it is a false.
(10:18):
First off, this has nothing to do with teaching the
importance of contraception, which is what the prep program was
designed to do. So doing a role play where someone's
pretending to be transgender or gender nonconforming, whatever that might mean,
has nothing to do with the importance of using contraception
in the first place. On the second piece, there are
(10:40):
boys and there are girls. And while some people all
into a very small category of intersex, No, under the
Trump administration, we recognize men and women as distinct biological categories,
and we're not going to entertain the social construct of gender.
(11:02):
We're certainly not going to force students in public schools
to learn it and degraded on it.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
One of the things that concerns me, Andrew, is that,
let's say we've got a very conservative administration right now,
and you and your team have what I would call
a conservative approach to this, and what's going to happen
if the next president is somebody like Kamala Harris who
(11:29):
believes exactly the opposite of what you believe, just as
strongly as you believe it.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
And I get very.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Concerned about this sort of roller coaster of policy where
we're going to have one administration that says you can't
talk about AB and C, and then the next administration
is going to say you must.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Talk about AB and C. And if you.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Don't talk about all the stuff that Andrew didn't want
you to talk about, if you don't aggressively go talk
about it, we're going to cut off your phone. So
how are we supposed to deal with that problem as
a society.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Well, the back and forth between multiple administrations just reminds
me the importance of parents having a seat at the
table and being able to have their voices heard. The
Supreme Court reminded us last year the teacher that parents
have an absolute right to pull their students out of
(12:26):
the classroom in situations where they're being taught materials that
they don't like. So I think it's important for parents
ask the right questions as far as what's getting put
in front of their children, and we're reminding the world
of the primacy of the prontal relationship. I like to
say that the best social program is a family, and
in this context it means the best social program is
(12:50):
a mother or a father who's engaged in their parents' life,
who asks questions of their school, their school board about
what's getting put in front of their children, and isn't
afraid to opt their children out of those materials. The
second piece I would mention is, after reviewing this program
and the curriculum that red states and blue states are
(13:12):
putting in front of students, I wonder whether the federal
government should be involved in this game at all. There
you go answer for the federal government to have any
role in providing money to states to teach sex education,
I'm not sure that that's appropriate at all, based on
the materials that we found.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
I couldn't agree with you more. That's the right answer
right there. And really, if there are states like Colorado, which,
as you know, I'm sure is a deep blue state
these days, Colorado is not going to want to go
along with any of these changes that you are saying
they must go along with if they want to keep
getting the federal money. And it wouldn't surprise me one
bit if Colorado and a bunch of other states say
(13:52):
all right, then we just won't take the federal money,
which by the way, is fine with me right as
a libertarian, as a guy who believes in the Constitution.
Most of what our federal government these days is unconstitutional.
So I think you hit the nail on the head
right there. I'll give you the last twenty seven, no,
twenty nine seconds because I like prime numbers.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Well, I agree with you. Whether the federal government should
be involved in this one way or another, that's a
future conversation. I look forward to engaging with our congressional
delegation on I will say that if a state is
going to maintain this sort of content in front of
their students, the federal government's not going to pay for
it anymore. And I'll look to just last week after
(14:31):
we were reviewed the Governor Gavin Newsom's curriculum in California,
and we gave them the same opportunity to correct their materials.
When they refuse, we pulled the plug on federal funding.
And that'll be that's twelve point three million dollars that
are going to go somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I have a feeling, and I don't know whether you're
in a position to confirm or deny, but this is
basically the same train that's heading at Colorado.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
It's the same playbook, and if Colorado refuses to correct
their materials they will sell for these same consequences.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
I appreciate that very direct statement. And and you know
you're you're talking on the biggest, the biggest talk station
in Colorado right now, so I think a lot of
people are finding this very interesting and important conversation. Andrew
Gradison is the Assistant Secretary for the Administration of Children
and Families at the Department of Health and Human Services HHS.
Thanks for the conversation, really interesting, Andrew, appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
You bet