Sex Ed for All Month
May is usually a one of the busiest times of the year for sexual health educators. It probably the time I get the most requests for sexual health presentations. Since it is at the end of the school year, teachers have had time to build a strong rapport with their students to cover topics that not everyone is comfortable talking about. I am so impressed by the connections that Cortland County health teachers make with their students over a relatively short period of time. It is clear to me how much they care about their students and the work they do. A HUGE shout out to our Health Teachers! You are awesome!
It seems appropriate then, that May is also Sex Ed for All Month. This has even more meaning for me know as a sexual health educator at the Center. While I have always tried to make my programs inclusive for everyone in my previous locations, working at an LGBTQ+ Center now gives that even more weight.
When I first started as a sexual health educator, we celebrated May as Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month. Back then sexual health’s sole purpose was to prevent teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, and HIV. As I have mentioned in previous articles, ironically, fear tactics and shame were used to try to help “educate” young people to try to scare them from being sexual. Not only did those tactics not work, they also cause harm. Sexual health education rarely acknowledged LGBTQ+ folks other than a footnote and when it did, it perpetuated myths and stigma, sometimes unintentionally as well as intentionally.
Sexual health education has evolved over the years to recognize that in order to be a sexually healthy human being, it means more than just preventing infection and teen pregnancy. We focus more on medically accurate and shame free education, having body autonomy, and understanding and fostering consent and respect in our relationships with others, to name a few. We have learned a lot about the diversity of biological sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, sexual expression, attraction, and pleasure. And we will continue to learn even against obstacles where people have been trained to fear sexuality and are uncomfortable with change and differences. We still have a long way to go.
A recent Reproductive Health Impact Study (RHIS) analyzed the effects of federal and state policy changes on US publicly funded family planning care from 2017 to 2024. The RHIS findings indicate that policy restrictions on sexual and reproductive health care impede access to care and compound existing inequities in health care access. Federal, state and local policies should promote meaningful access to sexual and reproductive health care, provision of person-centered care and support reproductive autonomy. You can read more about it here: Reproductive Health Impact Study | Guttmacher Institute.
That’s all I’ve got for now. I included a few of my favorite resources below to get more information on Sex Ex for All Month!
#SexEd4All