A federal judge in Eugene, Ore., has granted a preliminary injunction barring the federal government from halting grant funding for sex education programs that include references to gender identities.

U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken on Monday found the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services lacked any grounds to restrict such grant funding and said its new restrictions amounted to sex discrimination.

The grants were authorized by Congress to support sex education programs intended to help reduce teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections and adolescent sexual risk behavior based on “medical and social science,” Aiken wrote.

Congress also stated the programs must be “culturally specific,” so there’s no grounds for states to remove gender identity references, she wrote in her

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