The conservative news outlet reported earlier this week that the Department of Health and Human Services last September began paying a grant of almost $700,000 to the Center for Innovative Public Health Research, a non-profit that seeks to create "an inclusive teen pregnancy program for transgender boys."
According to the grant's paperwork, transgender youth are prone to ignore messaging that encourages safe practices.
"Youth who are assigned female at birth are at risk for negative sexual health outcomes yet are effectively excluded from sexual health programs because gender-diverse youth do not experience the cisgender, heteronormative teen sexual education messaging available to them as salient or applicable," the award description says.
Wednesday on Washington Watch, Meg Kilgannon – senior fellow for education studies at Family Research Council – summed it up this way.
"… When you fail to teach children about God's plan for human sexuality; when you fail to teach people about how beautifully and wonderfully they are made and [about] this beautiful design for human sexuality that God has for us, then you're going to need programs like this one that they're spending $700,000 on over four years," Kilgannon told show host Tony Perkins.
According to The Daily Wire, The Center for Innovative Public Health Research will first use a text-messaging based sexual health program designed for girls ages 14-18. The Center will then "test the resulting adaptation" among 700 girls nationwide to gauge their use of contraception, testing for sexually transmitted diseases, and pregnancy rates.
It's clear to Kilgannon, at least, that common sense is in short supply in federal agencies gone woke.
"[I don't see how] this stuff actually makes it through the vetting process in our federal government … where you would think there would be one person at HHS who would say, 'Hey, wait a minute, what are we doing here? We're supposed to be about healthcare' – but this is in fact the opposite of healthcare," Kilgannon argued.
Confusing language from the gov't
The National Institutes of Health writes "fertility planning for all transgender men, particularly those with a uterus, should be discussed at regular intervals without assumption of type of sexual activity or fertility goals. For patients aiming for pregnancy, clinicians should discuss both medical and psychosocial expectations from preconception to postpartum."
Such language, says Kilgannon, denies basic science – and muddles the message that young people need to hear.
"… When you start talking about things like 'pregnant people,' this is going to lead to some confusion like this, because women get pregnant – and they do that because they have sex with men. So clearly, children who are 14 years old should be avoiding this situation entirely," said the FRC fellow.
"Regardless of how [a child] may identify, the idea is to delay sexual debut and reserve sex for marriage," Kilgannon emphasized. "We know what God's plan is for human sexuality – but there's all kind of social science that points to the fact that this really is what's best for children."
