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.
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.