One protester came to the podium early in the meeting to warn committee members ominously: “This is gonna be hard for y’all.” “Maryland family life and human sexuality instruction shall represent all students regardless of ability, sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression,” the state guidelines say. More than 100 protesters stormed an April Family Life Advisory Committee meeting in Maryland’s Frederick County, less than 50 miles from Washington, D.C., to block discussion of implementing the state’s new health education standards there. What worries CSE advocates most is that even cities and suburbs in blue states like Massachusetts are seeing a growing opposition to new sex-ed standards. In most schools, whatever sex ed is offered is confined to a few days, or maybe a week, in the school year. Nevertheless, some school districts don’t teach sex ed at all, and most adopt their own local standards, in consultation with the community. Only 30 states require any form of sex ed, though in states that don’t, some school districts decide to do so anyway. Research shows that these more comprehensive approaches reduce teen pregnancy, delay the age at which teens commence sexual activity, lessen the spread of sexually transmitted infections, and promote teen health overall.
In later grades, they include issues of consent, bullying, methods of contraception, information about the right to abortion, and issues of gender identification and sexual orientation. “Comprehensive” programs typically include instruction on bodily autonomy, recognizing and reporting sexual abuse, and basic anatomy lessons in the early grades.
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“These are old networks and opponents, but I don’t think they are ‘reawakening.’ They never went away,” the longtime LGBTQ activist Evan Wolfson told The Daily Beast in April.Īt its most basic, “comprehensive sex education” refers to a curriculum that goes beyond the teaching of basic anatomy, bodily changes during puberty, and how to prevent pregnancy and STIs that many of us received decades ago in middle and high school. There are also the newer groups like the Family Policy Alliance (affiliated with the Family Research Council) and Stop CSE (created by the right-wing Family Watch International), which in turn have inspired state and local affiliates to advance an anti-CSE agenda. But much of it is fomented and funded by the usual right-wing suspects, including the Heritage Foundation, the Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation, Focus on the Family, and the Family Research Council, all of which have been leaders in tearing down public education and promoting private schools, as well as conservative policies at the local, state, and federal levels. Some of this backlash seems homegrown, involving parents like Soucy who are genuinely confused by or concerned about the relatively recent sex-ed guidelines adopted or proposed for their schools. “It was heartbreaking.” Jim Pillen, the winner of the Republican primary race for governor (who defeated the Donald Trump–endorsed candidate, Charles Herbster, who was accused of groping women), declared last year that “Nebraska should have no state sex education standards-these are decisions that should be made by parents, not bureaucrats.” “The opposition peddled fear and misinformation,” said Lisa Schulze, the education and training director for the Women’s Fund of Omaha. ( Alabama already has a law comparable to Florida’s.) Nebraska scuttled an attempt to develop state sex-ed guidelines in 2021 after a backlash from conservatives and Catholics.
According to Education Week, at least 30 pieces of legislation around the country “would variously circumscribe LGBTQ representation in the curriculum, the pronouns that students and teachers can use, and put limits on school clubs, among other things.” Most of these bills are making their way through the legislatures in red states like South Carolina, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Indiana. With the nation focused on Florida’s adoption of a Parental Rights in Education bill, which places restrictions on teaching or even mentioning sexual orientation and gender identity, especially in grades K-3, little attention is being paid to similar bills in the pipeline elsewhere.