Sex education in public schools is a popular issue of controversy in the United States. Do we promote abstinence until marriage as the only certain way to avoid STIs and unwanted pregnancy, or do we expose teens to the idea of sex and teach safe practices? These two opposing curriculums do have one thing in common: they both focus on heterosexual couples. At a crucial time in their development, LGBTQ students are being ignored in the classroom.
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This alienation can lead to not only an uncomfortable sense of not belonging, but also misinformation regarding which safe sex practices apply to them. A lack of education perpetuates myths such as “you can only get STIs from the opposite sex” and “lesbians can’t get pregnant.” A study conducted in Masschusetts showed, unsurprisingly, that GLB youth attending schools with gay-sensitive HIV instruction reported engaging in fewer sexual risk behaviors. However, prevention of STIs is not the only goal of sexual education, and acknowledging the risk of HIV in the GLB community does not by any means put GLB adolescents on equal ground with their heterosexual peers. The same study found that GLB youth, even in the presence of gay-sensitive HIV instruction, were still significantly more likely to feel threatened and/or engage in substance abuse, sexual risk behaviors, and suicide attempts than heterosexual youth. (2)
In the last decade, many anti-bullying and awareness programs have been implemented in schools nationwide in an attempt to create a safe environment for all students. But if the equality doesn’t extend to the classroom and sexuality is ignored in discussions, just how safe is this space? How can we really call our heteronormative standard of sex education “comprehensive”?
In fact, there are many examples of activists within the past few years who worked to prevent equality in the classroom. In Chicago, when Katie Cassidy pushed a bill that would require public school districts to move from the Illinois standard abstinence and monogamy based curriculum to one that would teach medically-accurate information about contraception, she was criticized for promoting “homosexuality-affirming elements” in the classroom. Even mentioning the existence of sexual orientations outside of heterosexual is seen as a threat to “traditional family values.” (3)
This is not to say that no progress has been made on other fronts, such as discrimination and marriage laws. But if equality doesn’t exist for adolescents in the classroom, a time when students are vulnerable and struggling with forming an identity, then our educational system has not done its job.
However, there are proposed changes to this faulty system. New sex ed guidelines released by a health and education coalition declared that elementary students should know the definition of sexual orientation as “the romantic attraction of an individual to someone of the same gender or a different gender” by the end of fifth grade. By the end of middle school, they should be aware of the differences between sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. The goal of these guidelines is to introduce the information early in childhood to provide a safe environment and promote safe practices later on. Unsurprisingly, this movement is under heavy fire for introducing “controversial topics” in the classroom. (4)
Do these new proposed standards have the right idea? Do they address a symptom or the larger problem? What more can we do to bring equality to the classroom and the school environment as a whole?
- Lauren D
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