House passes bill tying school funding to parental consent on gender markers

The U.S. House passed H.R. 2616, the Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act, on May 20, 2026. The final vote was 217-198, with 15 members not voting. Every Republican who voted backed the bill, joined by eight Democrats.

The eight Democrats who crossed over were Reps. Cleo Fields of Louisiana, Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Don Davis of North Carolina, Laura Gillen of New York, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, and Eugene Vindman of Virginia.

The bill is a package. The version that passed the House combines two measures the Education and Workforce Committee advanced in April 2025: H.R. 2616, the PROTECT Kids Act, and H.R. 2617, the Say No to Indoctrination Act. Reps. Tim Walberg of Michigan and Burgess Owens of Utah, the committee's chairman and vice chairman, led the combined bill.

The House considered it under a closed rule, which allowed one hour of debate and no amendments before an up-or-down vote.

The bill does not ban anything outright. It works by setting conditions on federal money. Schools that accept funds under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, a law that channels federal aid to most public schools, would have to follow the new rules to keep that money.

The consent requirement applies to elementary and middle grades, defined in the bill as grades five through eight. High schools are not covered.

Under the first section, a covered school would need a parent's written consent before changing a student's gender marker, pronouns, or preferred name on any school form. Consent would also be required before a student could use sex-based accommodations, such as bathrooms or locker rooms, that differ from the sex listed at enrollment.

Supporters describe this as a transparency rule. Critics describe it as a forced-disclosure rule, because a school could not honor a student's request to be addressed by a new name or pronoun without first telling the parent.

The second section addresses classroom content. It amends Section 8526 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to bar covered funds from being used to teach or advance concepts related to "gender ideology."

The bill does not write its own definition. It points to Section 2 of Executive Order 14168, which President Donald Trump signed on January 20, 2025. That order defines gender ideology to include the idea of self-assessed gender identity and the idea of a spectrum of genders.

Rep. Tim Walberg, the bill's lead sponsor, framed it on the House floor as a matter of family involvement. "These are enormously consequential decisions that have lasting impacts on a child's well-being and development," Walberg said. "Parents deserve to be part of those conversations."

Walberg added that a "lack of transparency risks confusion, undermines trust, and weakens the essential partnership between families and schools." Rep. Burgess Owens, who authored the indoctrination section, said the goal is to ensure federal education dollars go "into the classroom, not activism."

Democratic opponents focused on the federal government's role and on student safety. Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, the committee's ranking member, called the measure "federal coercion." Scott said he supports parental involvement, which he said "works in virtually all cases," but argued the bill goes further by "forcing schools in a situation where they may have to disclose sensitive information about a student, even when they know it can put that child's safety at risk."

Scott also said the bill would let federal officials shape what local schools teach, telling the House that states and districts have long set their own curriculum without federal interference.

Rep. Mark Takano of California, who chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, opposed the bill in a written statement. Takano, a former public school teacher of 24 years, said the measure puts educators "in an impossible situation" because the consent rule has no exception for cases where a teacher believes disclosure would expose a student to abuse. Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington said during debate that the bill would require schools to disclose a student's identity even when staff believe it could put the student in danger.

Groups including PEN America and the National Coalition Against Censorship also opposed the bill. Jonathan Friedman, who runs PEN America's U.S. free expression programs, urged Congress to reject it, warning that the classroom provision could be read to restrict books and lessons that mention transgender people. Tyler Hack, who directs the Christopher Street Project, said the consent requirement amounts to government-mandated disclosure of a student's gender identity.

Most students this bill would affect live in states that currently take a different approach. Research from the Movement Advancement Project found that about 85 percent of transgender youth ages 13 to 17 live in states that do not require schools to disclose a student's gender identity to parents, while six states have laws that do.

The Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law and other researchers have studied how disclosure policies affect students, with findings cited by both sides of the debate over family involvement and student safety.

The Congressional Budget Office reviewed the bill and estimated that enacting it would have no effect on federal spending for grants to elementary and secondary schools, because schools would adjust their practices rather than lose funds.

The bill now goes to the Senate. Most legislation there needs 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, and Republicans hold fewer than 60 seats. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has resisted pressure to weaken the filibuster for other priorities, and analysts following anti-transgender education bills have said the votes to pass such measures are not currently in the Senate. Unless the Senate acts, the House vote stands as a statement of where the chamber's majority stands rather than a change in law.