‘Unacceptable’: Tax dollars help train teachers that biological sex is a ‘myth’
America’s eighth-largest school district handed taxpayer cash to Planned Parenthood to train teachers that biological sex is a “myth,” according to documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Philadelphia School District (PSD), which oversees almost 200,000 students, paid Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania (PPSP) nearly $40,000 in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) HIV grant funds to provide up to 70 trainings which decry biological sex as a “myth,” support medical child sex-changes and normalize men in women’s sports, according to documents obtained by the DCNF through a public records request. Planned Parenthood delivered Comprehensive Sexual Education to more than 1.3 million participants during the 2023-2024 fiscal year, according to its latest annual report, dubbing itself as America’s “largest” sex education provider.
“Too many people remain unaware that Planned Parenthood has become a primary player in the youth gender industry and uses schools as the vehicle into the minds of children,” Erika Sanzi, director of outreach for Defending Education, told the DCNF. “This is already unacceptable on its face but the fact that they’re using federal dollars to promote these ideologies and lie about the long-term consequences of medicalization is reprehensible.”
PPSP contracted with the PSD to provide 14 unique sexual education trainings for teachers and students in grades 4-12, on topics such as creating a “safe space” for LGBT youth at school, “debunking myths” about child sex-changes and teaching “self-advocacy” to LGBT youth, documents show. The DCNF obtained slideshows from the presentations, revealing Philadelphia teachers are being trained to reinforce the gender-confusion of students and push youth towards obtaining medical sex-changes.
The funds for PPSP were derived from a $2.6 million dollar multi-year CDC grant for a school-based HIV prevention program, awarded to PSD in 2018.
PSD did not provide a comment in time for publication. The CDC and PPSP did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
Slides from a Planned Parenthood school training titled, “Debunking Myths about Gender-Affirming Care,” obtained from the Philadelphia School District via Public Records Request.
A PPSP teacher training titled “Debunking Myths about Gender-Affirming Care,” “debunks” what it claims to be “myths” about child sex-changes, such as “most people regret having gender-affirming surgery or medical interventions,” “kids are too young to know they’re trans or non binary” and “gender-affirming care is dangerous,” documents show.
The presentation incorrectly calls puberty blockers, which cause infertility, bone density loss and may impair brain development, “fully reversible,” and states child sex-change medical interventions are “life saving and life enabling.” A review published by the Trump administration in May 2025 found the child sex-change medical industry is built on junk science that lacks ethical justification.
Planned Parenthood is “wrong” to cast child-sex changes as safe and reversible, Dr. Kurt Miceli, medical director at the watchdog organization Do No Harm, told the DCNF.
“Planned Parenthood is wrong in its portrayal of so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ in minors. Multiple systematic reviews show that the quality of evidence for these interventions is incredibly weak,” Miceli told the DCNF. “The harms, on the other hand, are very real and serious. The risks range from infertility to surgical complications and regret. These interventions negatively impact bone health and cause cardiovascular disease, too. The experimental and harmful effects on youth are no myth and can’t be ignored.”
PPSP provides sex-change hormone therapy through in-person and remote telehealth appointments to patients over 18, directing minors seeking sex-change hormone therapy to contact the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Gender and Sexuality Development Program, according to its website. A training on medical child sex-changes lists the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who Do No Harm calls the “worst-offending” children’s hospitals in the country for “promoting sex change treatments for minors,” as a “local resource” for educators.
The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
Planned Parenthood claims biological sex is a “myth” and explains the importance of providing students with “gender-neutral” locker rooms and bathrooms in a teacher training titled “How to Make Your Classroom a Safe Space for LGBTQIA+ Students.” Teachers are further instructed to fill their classrooms with LGBT imagery, interrupt “transphobic” behavior and advocate for school-wide “queer positive” sexual education.
PPSP addresses the hot button topic of male “transgender” athletes competing in girls sports in the same training, stating there is “no research” to support males having an advantage over females in sports. It states that research supports that a “lack of athletic opportunities in schools,” which transgender activists say occurs when males are denied access to girls sports, is an “actual” threat to students.
A slide presentation titled, “How to Make Your Classroom a Safe Space for LGBTQIA+ Students,” obtained from the Philadelphia School District via Public Records Request.
In a PPSP training titled “Teaching Digital Decision-Making, Media Literacy and Safety,” teachers were warned they might be exposed to “transphobia,” “misogyny” and “bullying,” when reviewing a series of tweets, including those authored by J.K. Rowling, that questioned the legitimacy of Imane Khelif, an allegedly male boxer, participating in female sports, documents show.
Khelif controversially won the 2024 Summer Olympics female gold medal in the boxing competition. In March 2023, Khelif was excluded from participating in the International Boxing Association (IBA) women’s events after a series of blood tests showed Khelif failed to meet its definition of a woman, according to the IBA website. The IBA wrote a letter to the International Olympic Committee in June 2023 and expressed concerns over the safety of female boxers if forced to compete with Khelif.
Could any picture sum up our new men’s rights movement better? The smirk of a male who’s knows he’s protected by a misogynist sporting establishment enjoying the distress of a woman he’s just punched in the head, and whose life’s ambition he’s just shattered. #Paris2024 pic.twitter.com/Q5SbKiksXQ
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) August 1, 2024
A PPSP student media literacy training asked youth to identify “red flags,” defined as content on social media that is exclusionary, prejudiced or providing false information. Students were asked to find the “red flag” when provided with a photo of a pregnant “man” and a statement that only biological women can get pregnant, documents show.
A PPSP training titled “Self Advocacy For LGBTQ+ Youth” encouraged students to embrace “coming out” and to be supportive of medically transitioning “transgender” friends.
Slides in a media literacy training obtained from the Philadelphia School District via Public Records Request.
In its 2023-2024 Annual Report, PPSP praised its partnership with PSD, saying it has trained 627 teachers and staff to “cultivate shame-free schools.”
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