Inside The Biden Administration’s ‘Speed Dating’ Event For Trans Activists And Megadonors

Less than a month before the 2024 presidential election, President Joe Biden’s administration brought together transgender activists, government officials, and major progressive philanthropists in what organizers dubbed a “speed dating” event.

The event, called “Our Family Values: Building the Evidence Base for Child Well-Being,” took place just three weeks before Americans would vote to send Donald Trump back to the White House following a campaign that revolved largely around radical gender ideology. But even as the election seemed to break against them, the Biden White House was working to match leaders of “family acceptance” child welfare programs with major funders of the LGBTQ movement, records show.

Biden officials viewed “family acceptance” of so-called gender identity as an important step in “preventing” LGBTQI+ children from entering foster care and wanted to further the impact of radical child welfare programs. The goal of the speed dating event was to expand child welfare programs that re-educate non-affirming parents to accept their child’s “LGBTQI+” identity, records show.

“We know that family support around LGBTQI+ identity, as early as possible, is a key protective factor against … entry into the child welfare and juvenile justice systems for LGBTQI+ youth,” Julie Kruse, a contracted senior advisor for the LGBTQI+ Initiatives, wrote in an email describing the event. “These programs are critical to preventing LGBTQI+ youth homelessness and entry into foster care.”

Angela Weeks, director of the National Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity & Expression Center, was instrumental in setting up the event. On October 13, she sent an email to participants explaining how the “Partnership Speed Matching” would work.

“You will rotate between tables of philanthropic organizations and ACF leadership. They will be instructed to ask you and question they have of you during the 8-min discussion. When each rotation only has two minutes left, Marlene will give the 2-minute warning, which is the cue for you all to start discussing next steps/collaboration,” Weeks wrote in the email. “Try not to leave the table without a next step and a contact person. It will be the purveyor’s responsibility to follow-up.”

At least 14 donors were invited to participate in the speed dating event, along with government officials who came from the Administration for Children and Families, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, records show.

After the event, Kruse sent several follow-up emails indicating the meeting was successful and that donors were interested in funding the family acceptance programs.

“Our great hope is that you made connections and identified resources at this event that will help you take actions to increase the availability of LGBTQI+ family support services, so that children can stay safely in their homes with families of origin and kin, preventing LGBTQI+ youth homelessness and entry into foster care,” wrote Kruse.

Some transgender activists believe refusing to affirm a child’s gender confusion is a form of child abuse. During a webinar hosted by the Department of Health and Human Services in the fall of 2023, one activist called “transphobia” child abuse and suggested families should be prosecuted as abusers for refusing to call their gender confused child the opposite sex.

“Biden promised to enforce LGBTQ ideology throughout government systems in his 2020 campaign platform, and no administration has done more damage to child welfare systems,” Laura Hanford, senior policy analyst at the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Human Flourishing, told The Daily Wire. “He funneled millions of dollars to toxic ideological training programs promoting the lie that raising a gender-confused child as his or her sex is abusive, and forcing parents to ‘transition’ their gender-confused children or lose them to the state.”

The organizers of the invitation-only October 16 event hoped to elevate “family acceptance programs” to the scientific standards of the Prevention Services Clearinghouse, a federal database of social services programming used by child welfare agencies across the country.

“October 16 will focus on building the evidence base (e.g., research, analysis, evaluation) for family support programs that would make them eligible for the Family First Prevention Services, a significant source of federal funds for prevention programs that meet a certain evidence threshold,” Kruse wrote.

The Family First Prevention Services Act, which became law in February 2018, diverted federal funds from supporting children in foster care to programs aimed at preventing children from entering state systems. The Prevention Services Clearinghouse was established in accordance with the law to provide a systematic process to rate and review the quality of evidence supporting prevention programs. The database lists available programming with a rating of  “well-supported, supported, promising, or does not currently meet criteria,” according to its website. States can receive federal reimbursement for using programs approved by the Prevention Services Clearinghouse.

“The idea was that [the Clearinghouse] was going to give states a list of evidence-based programs that they could choose from and that they would be eligible to receive federal reimbursement if they used those programs,” Naomi Schaefer Riley, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told The Daily Wire. “If they passed, if they got the Clearinghouse stamp of approval, then states could kind of pick these programs off of a kind of shelf and say, ‘We’re going to use this one and we’ll get federal reimbursement for it.’”

The “speed dating” event was co-sponsored by the Administration for Children and Families, the Department of Health and Human Services, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Child Welfare League of America, the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, the National Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity & Expression Center, the Trevor Project, and Think of Us, records show.

Kruse personally invited Funders for LGBTQ Issues, a philanthropic organization that envisions a “world where all queer, trans, and gender non-conforming people are liberated, loved, valued, respected, and thriving,” to attend the meeting. The group gives approximately $200 million annually to LGBTQ issues, according to its website.

A representative from the organization wrote it was unable to attend the October 2024 meeting but hoped they could “remain in touch to identify future ways we can partner together to advance our shared goals,” emails show. In response, Kruse set up a personal meeting between the Funders for LGBTQ Issues, the Administration for Children and Families, and Weeks.

The Funders for LGBTQ Issues did not respond to The Daily Wire’s requests for comment.

The National SOGIE Center is home to a group of activists working to transform social services nationwide through gender affirming programs, many of which are available on its website. Members of the group worked hand in hand with the Biden administration to inform its September 2023 regulation requiring foster care families to affirm a child’s gender confusion.

Weeks had a working relationship with Kruse that was critical in organizing the “Our Family Values” event, records reveal.

In July 2024, Kruse emailed Weeks and officials from the Administration for Children and Families, HHS, and NIH, to lay the groundwork for the event. The pair stayed in regular communication through November 2024, records show.

The “Our Family Values” event was focused on three programs: Chosen Affirming Finding Family, Youth Acceptance Project, and AFFIRM Caregiver programs, which are all affiliated with the National Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity & Expression Center.

The Chosen Affirming Finding Family program helps “LGBTQ+ young people” identify “chosen family” who can provide them support and “works with those people to help them understand the young person’s LGBTQ+ identity and the best ways to affirm and support them with their identity and transition into adulthood,” according to a SOGIE Center document.

The Youth Acceptance Project is a program that re-educates parents of children who are “at risk” of entering the child welfare system due to “family stress” surrounding the child’s gender identity.

“The YAP social workers/clinicians provide a trauma-informed, psycho-educational model while partnering with parents/caregivers; supporting them to process misinformation, resistance, fear, and grief that families often struggle with when they learn that their child is LGBTQ+,” a National Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity & Expression Center document reads. “The Youth Acceptance Project is designed to work both with families of children already in, or at risk of entering, the child welfare system due to family stress resulting from their child’s sexual orientation, gender identity or expression.”

Finally, the Affirm Caregiver program is an educational intervention that enhances “affirmative parenting practices that promote the safety and wellbeing of LGBTQ+ youth,” according to a National Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity & Expression Center document.

Parents across the country have had their children taken away by child welfare services for affirming their child’s sex.

President Trump called for federal action to protect the rights of parents to affirm the true sex of a gender confused child in his recent State of the Union address.

“Surely we can all agree no state can be allowed to rip children from their parents’ arms and transition them to a new gender against the parents’ will,” Trump said. “Who would believe that we’re even talking about it? We must ban it, and we must ban it immediately.”

The Trump administration is taking action to stop the spread of child welfare family acceptance programs.

The Clearinghouse website notes that the AFFIRM Youth, a sister program of AFFIRM Caregiver, was “removed from the working list of programs and services planned for systematic review,” in accordance with Executive Order 14151.

The Administration for Children and Families at HHS has also alerted all 50 states that affirming “biological reality” does not constitute child abuse or neglect under federal laws. It has also encouraged states to clearly define the terms “abuse” and “neglect,” saying these definitions should clarify that affirming a child’s sex and “refusing to condone sex-rejecting interventions” does not constitute abuse.

The Trump administration has since “rescinded a Biden-era rule that required prospective foster families to affirm support for a child’s gender transition or sexual orientation in order to receive federal funding,” Health and Human Services Press Secretary Emily G. Hilliard told The Daily Wire.

“This requirement discouraged many faith-based families from participating in foster care at a time when the nation is experiencing a record year-over-year decline in foster families. By removing this barrier, ACF is expanding the pool of qualified caregivers and reinforcing its commitment to biological reality, parental rights, and equal access to the foster care system.”

“The child welfare actions of the Trump and Biden administrations are diametrically opposed,” Hanford told The Daily Wire. “Biden’s programs embedded toxic gender ideology in child welfare systems, leading to gender-confused children being ripped from parents who simply affirmed the reality of their sex. Trump, in contrast, is taking major steps to protect such families from being ripped apart.”

The Daily Wire reached out to the organizations named in public records as possible attendees of the October 16, 2024, event.

A spokeswoman for Arnold Ventures confirmed it does not fund the family acceptance programs seeking funding at the October 16, 2024, event.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation told The Daily Wire, “Due to our longstanding expertise in child welfare, over the years the Foundation has frequently been invited by the administrations of both parties to events on topics related to foster care and family well-being. As part of that ongoing engagement, a Foundation representative attended the signing of President Trump’s ‘Fostering the Future’ executive order in November 2025.”

A representative from Blue Meridian Partners told The Daily Wire the invited representative did not attend the event and that it has not considered for funding or funded the organizations or programs discussed at the “Our Family Values” event.

The Daily Wire requested a comment from the Pritzker Foster Care Initiative, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Child Welfare League of America, the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, the National Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity & Expression Center, the Trevor Project, Think of Us, Angela Weeks, Julie Kruse, Family Builders (YAP program), Kinnect (CAFF program) and Affirmative Research for comment but did not receive a response.