Last week I talked about the types of sex ed currently in the United States. There are two main types: Comprehensive Sex Education and Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage education. Comprehensive Sex Education is the highly encouraged one. This is the most effective type of sex ed. It led to the least amount of teen pregnancy. It teaches kids that sex is okay but take certain precautions to make sure you are safe. It also encourages teens to explore sexuality and feel like they are in a safe space to talk and ask questions. Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage education takes an entirely different approach. It is more along the lines of scaring children into not having sex. They teach about sex but over-dramatize how often STI and teen pregnancies occur. Also, it beats in religious values and teaches that the only correct answer to an unplanned pregnancy is to have the child and put it up for adoption. Another big part of the information I threw at you all last week was that only twenty-two states require factual information on sex organs and how they interact both within one’s own body or two bodies interacting.
This week I’m going to dive deeper into the fact that sex education should be more than the effects and how it happens. Explore sexuality should be included when teaching. Teach students that it is okay to explore their sexuality, whether they think they are straight, gay, bi, or any other part of the LGBTQIA+ community. I was not taught that at all in my school. Texas only talks about abstinence and how if you have a kid, you have to keep it or put it up for adoption if you don’t keep it. They told us nothing about exploring sexuality or exploring our options. Much less that these were acceptable ways of life.
Last week I touched on how comprehensive sex ed talked about exploring options about one’s sexuality. I will be going into it this wekthis week because it sets us up for the next blog post. In my next blog post, I’m talking about how Texas’ Governor has declared that every parent with a trans child is being looked into for child abuse. So, learning about the current education given to people can help see why they jumped to such outrageous conclusions. Educating young and older adults about the process and how it truly harms no one will help set up next week’s discussion. I’ve seen the lack of education first hand. My hairdresser has two boys, she is very religious, and left-leaning, so she does not agree with anyone in the LGBTQIA+ community, much less trans. She has talked to clients about how she is scared for her boys to grow up in a time where you have to as the girl if she was born a female or not.
So, now to talk about current education. Comprehensive sex education teaches kids that it is okay to explore their sexuality. Whether it be with the same or opposite gender, their gender, or how many partners, they do or don’t want to have, this is a good start, but from what I can find, comprehensive sex education only touches the surface; it doesn’t give children many resources to learn more about this. This method is helpful because, it gives kids the knowledge that if they don’t feel attracted to the opposite gender, they’re not alone or messed up.
Human Rights Campaign says, “Far too many LGBTQ youth are sitting in classrooms where their teachers and textbooks fail to appropriately address their identities, behaviors and experiences. Not teaching these young people about their options and how that works. Nowhere is this absence more clear, and potentially more damaging, than in sex education.” actually hurts them. Letting kids know they have these options without forcing them into anything exposes them to the world around them. Even if they aren’t LGBTQIA+ they are told that there are people that are and know how everything works.
“Currently, sex-education standards vary widely across the country, leaving many American youth uninformed about basic anatomy, healthy relationship skills, and safer sex practices. On top of this, LGBT youth face particular challenges. Sex-education materials often assume students are heterosexual and nontransgender. Many sex-education curricula do not mention sexual orientation or gender identity at all, and some that do discuss it only in a negative light. This not only prevents LGBT students from learning the information and skills they need to stay healthy, but it also contributes to a climate of exclusion in schools, where LGBT students are already frequent targets of bullying and discrimination.” Hanah Slater wrote this in response to a bill that has been brought up in the house of representatives for years and gets denied. The bill would lay the ground rules for education standards in schools, include LGBTQIA+ orientation options and the correct anatomy being taught as well. All the basic information that we should have been taught in schools and not through TIkTok or other social media platforms or friends/family. Honestly most of my sex education came from friends/family. Our schools sex ed was pathetic, we learned how to put a tampon in for our gym coach. We also learned how to put a condom on a banana. That was the end of our anatomy lesson. We did many exercises that taught us how scary STD’s are but never really anything that taught us how to prevent them except to not have sex. Birth control was never talked about, nothing on what kinds of condoms to use with what kind of lube. Honestly that week of sex ed was a joke. The subject of gender identity was never talked about at all.
This is sad. The fact that social media is teaching students more accurate representations of human anatomy and safe sex. The fact that people think teaching their kids about gender identity options will turn the gay is depressing and homophobic. If we changed how we taught about the LGBTQIA+ community and actually helped kids explore their sexuality, it would help kids in that community not be bullied and it would help everyone understand what options they have.
https://www.hrc.org/resources/a-call-to-action-lgbtq-youth-need-inclusive-sex-education
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/lgbt-inclusive-sex-education-means-healthier-youth-and-safer-schools/
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