Sex education classes often don't include LGBTQ+ students. New restrictions could make it worse
Sex education classes often don't include LGBTQ+ students. New restrictions could make it worse
Many LGBTQ+ students say they have not felt represented in sex education classes. To learn about their identities and how to build healthy, safe relationships, some have turned to social media or YouTube.
In fifth grade, Stella Gage’s class watched a video about puberty. In ninth grade, a few sessions of her health class were dedicated to the risks of sexual behaviors.
That was the extent of her sex education in school. At no point was there any content that felt especially relevant to her identity as a queer teenager. To fill the gaps, she turned mostly to social media.
“My parents were mostly absent, my peers were not mature enough, and I didn’t have anyone else to turn to,” said Gage, who is now a sophomore at Wichita State University in Kansas.
Many LGBTQ+ students say they have not felt represented in sex education classes. To learn about their identities and how to build healthy, safe relationships, they often have had to look elsewhere.
As lawmakers in some states limit what can be taught about sex and gender, it will be that much more difficult for those students to come by inclusive material in classrooms.
New laws targeting LGBTQ+ people have been proliferating in GOP-led states. Some elected officials, including candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, have been pushing to remove LGBTQ+ content from classrooms.
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Sex education has always been about learning about puberty body changes, safe sex (namely not getting an STI/STD or having an unplanned pregnancy), and more recently the importance of consent. It has never been about expressing sexuality, sexual identity, or building relationships. I’m not sure I follow what is missing.
In order to learn about sex you're going to have to learn about either straight sex, gay sex, or both. Turns out both types of sex happen to exist. If you're going to learn about straight sex you should probably learn about gay sex too in case you're gay. If you're trans the topic of puberty and your changing body gets 10 times more complicated. You should probably learn about that in case you're trans. It would be helpful for queer kids and the things they experience to not be left out of sex ed, also so that kids who don't know there's some form of queer yet don't grow up thinking that they're broken.
Since both straight and gay sex exists, and because trans people exist too, learning about sex from those perspectives is important.
This kind of education is what could have stopped an entire country from thinking that AIDS is caused by being gay.
Excluding queer sexuality and gender from sex education is what we've been doing since forever, and surprise it's left queer kids unprepared for the things they will encounter, and the other kids with the kinds of assumptions that you express here.
We learned next to nothing on sex, straight or otherwise. It was just condoms, dental dams, periods/ovulation, wet dreams, how babies are made, and consent
Sounds like you learned a ton about straight sex, especially given that most sex Ed programs only tell students to abstain. You learned something about condoms, which I assume means that you learned how to put one on.
In most of the country, sex Ed is one video about puberty and then in health being told to abstain from sex to avoid pregnancy and STDs with detailed descriptions about the pain and torture of STDs.
It would be superhelpful if sex Ed programs were expanded upon your curriculum to dispel sex myths, like women can't get pregnant if they are on top or take a shower right after. It would also be good to discuss how to prevent harm during vaginal and anal sex.
All those things are equally applicable to gay sex. Gay men use the same condoms as straight people. And like it or not, reproduction involves a sperm and egg. And consent is pretty universal, too.
I agree dispelling dangerous pregnancy myths would be good, but I don’t think actual sex instruction belongs in school, gay or straight.
You don't think it's important to teach how to prevent a prolapse or anal tearing/fissures? Or stress the importance of condom use in anal sex to prevent hepatitis?
We both agree that we shouldn't be teaching sexual positions and how to bring a partner to climax, bit I think we should be teaching kids how to safely have sex so they aren't hurting themselves.
Yeah, that seems like a fairly lean education on the topic. If you're going to receive an education on something it probably shouldn't be just the bare minimum?
Then why do they only teach about straight sex?
They don’t teach straight sex other than basic reproduction. They are trying to prevent teen pregnancy, and that’s something you don’t have to worry about with gay sex.
You have to worry about the spread of STI's with all sex.
Which would be covered in sex ed already.
You are mistaking this as being about "expressing"when it's about navigating it, and that certainly includes understanding healthy realtionship development between individuals that decide to engage in sexual activity.
Is having a relationship with someone you engage in sex with not exactly what expressing sexuality is?
My point is, this isn’t taught for straight people, either.
Yeah, I had pretty good sex ed, and it was just that, sex ed. Body parts, consent, having babies, not having babies, not getting STDs. Nothing about relationships, straight or otherwise. Should kids be taught about healthy relationships, and how to get help if you're in an unhealthy one? Yes. Should it be part of sex ed? I don't think so.
Maybe we should just have a remedial "things your parents should have taught you" class for stuff like that.
The treatment sex ed as being risk assessment and harm reduction strategy is incomplete without some key points that also protect people having sex for recreational purposes specifically ones that LGBTQIA people tend to use as their primary forms of sexual engagement. Like if you don't have a segment on anal sex with information about how it makes some STIs more transmissible, how anal sex with female partners is more likely to cause injury, and yes some basic pointers on techniques for making it safer for the people who rely on it as their primary form of being sexually intimate then you do leave people open to :
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Higher physical risk of injury when experimenting with sex.
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being potentially pressured into something with unique models and techniques needed for truly effective STI reduction.
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people believing that it's ultimately less of a big deal or life course altering because "you can't get pregnant" so treating those behaviours as less risky
Removing or omitting sex ed that does not mention other risky forms of sexual intimacy other than heterosexual reproductive sex means you are creating blindspots of safety for everyone as many forms of sex like anal have become culturally prized even in heterosexual relationships. The prudish idea of "we can't teach them techniques !" often stands of the way of fully comprehensive safety instruction leaving some demographics out in the cold as privileged people continue to treat those forms of sex as taboo and stigmatized.
Teaching minors how to have sex is just asking for it to get banned even more than it already is. You really think a public school lesson plan of “how to fuck someone in the ass” will be supported my even a bare majority?
Maybe if they saw what that sort of lesson plan looks like maybe they would realize it's hardly as lude as people make it seem. Basically the key points are
- Anal / Oral sex exists
- These forms of sex comes with unique disease transmission risks.
- There are specific condoms that offer greater protection for anal sex
- Safe preparation before hand involves a cleaning stage and the use of lubricant
- If you are female you have a much higher risk of injury
That's really it. It's hardly sitting kids down and getting them to watch porn, heck you don't even need graphics. Honestly if we mustered up a national program to put adults through actually decent sex ed so they wouldn't freak out so bloody much we wouldn't be having this problem. Where I am when I was a kid they piloted a number of university lecturers to hold age appropriate sex ed starting at grade one which covered basic anatomy and consent. They realized that just giving girls particularly exact words meant way greater protection for them as when a little girl comes to you an goes "My uncle touched my cookie." doesn't immediately ring alarm bells.
I would hazard that if they put it to a vote actually attending programs like these should be mandatory for actually getting a say. Letting the ignorant and uninformed decide the quality of an education system can only lead to it being subpar.
Nah, I doubt that will fly. That curriculum will get sex ed canceled. We literally have people that think you can’t say “gay” in class.
I wish people realized what they were actually signing on to when they have their kids go to a public school. Essentially it's an experimental education devised by a bunch of people who spend their entire lives devising the science of how to try and raise good citizens. The techniques you were educated with were essentially defunct the minute you graduated and in the process of refinement. It's free to the public because the buy in is that you agree to become a part of the ongoing experiment. This individualist entitlement of "They should teach my child only what I WANT THEM TO KNOW!" is fine for private schools and homeschool - options made available in theory to everyone - but literal beggars can't be choosers.
When they rolled out the initiative in my area it was an extremely Christian area. Parents were basically given three nights to come in to see the presentation beforehand along with an explanation of the reasons and objectives behind syllabus. If you didn't show up to the presentation and sign the forms at the very end your kids were opted into the program. Of the parents who showed up only an extreme minority pulled their children from the program.
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