Sex education classes often don't include LGBTQ+ students. New restrictions could make it worse

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.

AA5B, (edited )

Maybe there’s useful sex Ed these days, but all I remember are very dry boring biology videos about embarrassing subjects. I bet most of these lgbt kids also have reproductive organs and get embarrassed talking about them.

LaunchesKayaks,
@LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world avatar

Y’all had sex ed? My class just played kickball instead because the guest speaker bailed and the actual teachers didn’t wanna teach us.

The most I got from school was: “hey, you have female reproductive organs! Here’s the cheapest maxi-pad! You’ll need it for when you start bleeding! That’s a totally normal thing btw!”

The thing is, I have endometriosis and a heart condition. I didn’t realize that the amount of blood loss I went through on a monthly basis was too much. Nobody ever told me that bleeding until you experience symptoms of bad blood loss isn’t normal. I also kept all the abnormal pain to myself until I was 23.

kttnpunk,
@kttnpunk@lemmy.world avatar

About 15 years ago I remember my teacher calling anal sex “unnatural” and dodging questions entirely by refusing to answer more after someone brought this up.

ipkpjersi,

That’s unfortunate close-minded teachers are allowed to teach subjects like these.

Potatos_are_not_friends,

My sex ed classes growing up in the 90s was equally garbage, if it helps.

We went hard science, like what’s in HIV.

But I didn’t even learn anything about sex. And pretty much left college still uncertain if you had sex with a pregnant woman, the baby might grab your sausage.

afraid_of_zombies,

My sex education class, and yes I really wish I was lying here:

They separated us by gender. A guy in his early 20s maybe late teens came in, hadn’t seen him before. He gave a talk about how if we watched porn we would only be attracted to “a plastic bag” and not love our future wives while one of the super Catholic teachers we had nodded in agreement. Looking back I am pretty confident he was some college student in some religious school.

Not so fun fact, I have a sister who became a mom at age 19.

CosmicTurtle,

It’s not uncommon that super conservative areas have the highest rate of teen pregnancies.

Some might say that it’s a very strong correlation.

OneOrTheOtherDontAskMe,

Well don’t leave us hanging, have you had sex with a pregnant woman and did the baby grab your sausage?

captainlezbian,

My sex ed classes taught me that gay sex was a sin and condoms don’t prevent the spread of hiv among other things. None of this helped me. Even though I thought I was probably cishet in high school I knew it was bullshit and the only thing that helped me in my sex ed was teaching us to label detailed anatomical diagrams of reproductive biology, which was actually extremely helpful.

I shouldn’t have had to learn safe sex from the queer community. Nobody should have to learn from social media.

The thing about teenagers is that they’re people. Not person-lite, just full on people. And they deserve to know the realities of an important aspect of life the best we can teach it

user224,
@user224@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

At least you had some sex ed. We were always self-taught, and learning from the hub isn’t most healthy.

afraid_of_zombies,

The only thing that really helped me was that my first serious gf went to a different school district and knew some basics.

Lemminary,

I shouldn’t have had to learn safe sex from the queer community.

This is why LGBT+ centers are so important. Even though it’s not their responsibly, they’re doing a great job picking up the slack

captainlezbian,

It’s also why our history is important. The gays currently coming of age didn’t grow up with a big gap in their elders to make clear what aids is. I didn’t learn I could get hiv from lesbian sex until I read some scathing essays about the lesbian aids epidemic. Our history informs our survival

BombOmOm,
@BombOmOm@lemmy.world avatar

The complaint is that sex education only teaches about sex and not other topics like gender? Or are we back to arguing sex and gender are the same thing and sex education isn’t about sex education anymore.

lolcatnip,

Sex and sex are not even the same thing. One is an act you can engage in and the other is a biological trait.

afraid_of_zombies,

Given the number of words English has I wonder why we are stuck with these types of mixups.

Ensign_Crab,

As long as gay people are marginalized, you’re happy.

derf82,

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.

NAXLAB, (edited )

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.

derf82,

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

NAXLAB, (edited )

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?

dezmd,
@dezmd@lemmy.world avatar

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.

derf82,

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.

SheeEttin,

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.

archiotterpup,

Then why do they only teach about straight sex?

derf82,

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.

Ensign_Crab,

You have to worry about the spread of STI’s with all sex.

sudo22, (edited )
@sudo22@lemmy.world avatar

Which would be covered in sex ed already.

Drivebyhaiku,

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 :

  • Higher physical risk of injury when experimenting with sex.
  • being potentially pressured into something with unique models and techniques needed for truly effective STI reduction.
  • 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.

derf82,

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?

Drivebyhaiku,

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.

derf82,

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.

darq,
@darq@kbin.social avatar

The cruelty is the point.

Also informed kids are better able to report people abusing them, and conservatives don't like that.

Binthinkin, (edited )

Imagine being the type of person or persons who likes keeping knowledge from others. What do you think their breath smells like?

I imagine my old second grade teacher who stayed too long and has ass coffee breath.

ubermeisters,
@ubermeisters@lemmy.world avatar

Wtf lmao thier breath

lolcatnip,

I only remember having one teacher with atrocious breath, and he only seemed interested in teaching us about algebra.

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