Rory Sexton was living in Texas when she first received any form of sexual education — if you could even call it that.
She remembers having two days of lessons entirely about HIV in grade 4, but students only learned that a person could contract it by being in contact with the blood of someone who was infected. It wasn’t until moving to Massachusetts that she received a more in-depth education that actually talked about sex, let alone the concepts of gender identity and sexual orientation.
“[My sexual education] was so wonderfully well-rounded,” she said. “My area, Boston, is one of the most Democratic cities in America. So I feel like I kind of lucked out in that way, because there was definitely a big community of acceptance [and] I had openly Queer teachers.”
“It covered all the bases, like a lot of discussion about the Queer community, a lot of discussion about sex versus gender … and how to be respectful to everyone.”
Now a fourth-year biology student at UBC, talking to people who grew up in other areas has shown Sexton that people come into university with very different understandings of sex. Unfortunately, her positive experience isn’t very common.
“[If I] hadn't moved to Boston and I stayed in Texas … I think my outlook would be completely different,” said Sexton. “I don't think that I would have learned so much about myself, and I definitely think that I would have had a lot more prejudice if I had stayed somewhere without this education. Also, I think I would have done things that were a lot more risky.”
Although she moved to a completely different state, Sexton noted sometimes schools just blocks apart had drastic variations in their sex ed curriculums.
Dr. Brandy Wiebe, a UBC sociology lecturer, is also a member of Saleema Noon Sexual Health Educators, a team who runs workshops in elementary and high schools introducing students to concepts surrounding anatomy, health and sex.
“We'll meet with parents first, share what exactly we're talking about, why it's so important to be talking with their kids about sexual health right from the get-go in an inclusive, comprehensive way,” said Wiebe. “[We] support them, ideally, to be having those conversations with their kids as well as what's happening in schools.”
Wiebe noted that in BC, the provincial framework for sexual health education is “worded very broadly,” which allows her flexibility in how she approaches topics like Queerness with younger kids.
Wiebe typically begins by introducing reproduction and explaining how there are many ways people can start a family, like by adopting or by fertilizing an egg with the help of a doctor.
“I'll say to the little ones starting in kindergarten, that could happen if you had two moms, or if you had two dads or if you had a single parent family,” said Wiebe. “It's there, not as a big glut of information, just as far as, ‘Hey, humans are diverse.’”
She also tries to help children understand how gender identity can differ from anatomy — parents often ask Wiebe if kids find this confusing or overwhelming. She used to check in with them throughout the lesson to see if they were understanding, but she’s realized this isn’t really necessary.
“I realized that that's my adult brain that was reared within a binary system [which] kids don't have as much,” she said.
Most elementary school-aged kids won’t even leave the class with any memory of what was discussed, let alone a thorough understanding of it — but there will usually be at least a few who are prepared to receive the information, Wiebe said.
“Some kids will then keep listening because they're ready developmentally, or they've had the experience that supports more complexity,” she said. “I always assure parents that kids will only take what they're ready for … They just learn through observation.”
Regardless of gender or sexuality, Wiebe makes sure she teaches all high school students about consent, safe sex, STIs and pleasure. She said some students may not think they need certain information, but it’s still important to have that knowledge in their back pocket. She specifically cited how Queer youth are more likely to experience unplanned pregnancy compared to their heterosexual counterparts because of “cisheterosexism encouraging experiences that maybe people aren’t truly enthusiastic about.”
“When we're not truly enthusiastic, we're certainly not empowered to care for our boundaries [and] our bodies,” Wiebe said.
But while this broad framework allows Wiebe to provide a more inclusive stance on sex ed, it leaves many teachers feeling helpless, and students suffering the consequences. Wiebe highlighted that one area where schools could support students' sexual education is by actually training teachers on the subjects.
Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights, formerly Planned Parenthood Canada, released a report citing the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada’s 2019 revised directives for sex ed — a tool to outline the national standards of what Canadians should be able to expect from their sexual education.
These standards focus on the quality of sexual education and the need for it to be consistent, with students of all identities receiving inclusive and scientifically accurate information. However, the report iterated that provincial and territorial governments responsible for curriculum development and implementation are falling short.
Action Canada notes that sex ed in Canada tends to be spotty due to a host of reasons, including a lack of standard evaluations of sex ed classes, no mechanisms to ensure provinces implement this curriculum and no provincial funding to ensure teachers are properly educated and feel comfortable teaching the material.
“It's like walking up to any parent on the street and being like, ‘Hey, why don't you roll up and do this sex ed lesson.’ That's not fair to ask teachers to [do] without training,” said Wiebe.
Not all schools are inviting educators like Wiebe to take the lead on these conversations — so what are other schools doing instead, and is it actually working?
Mason O’Connor, a fifth-year studying anthropology and critical studies in sexuality, grew up in Toronto. One of her earliest memories of learning about bodies was in grade 5, when O’Connor said her class was introduced to some useful information about puberty, but also unhealthy perspectives on body image.
“[Our teacher told us] puberty is the easiest time in your life to gain a lot of weight, and once you gain that weight in puberty, it sticks,” she said.
In grade 7, her class was shown pictures of genitals impacted by STI symptoms, but there was no explanation of what sex actually was and how one could avoid infection.
O’Connor switched into a private all-girls school in grade 10, which she described as a space that promoted feminism and raising strong women — but her sex ed only entailed classes centring on self-defence. She remembers a police officer coming into the class for the unit.
“We learned all these self-defence moves, and he would pin us down in a position that, they didn't say, but was meant to simulate rape. So he would be straddling us, and then we would only pass the unit if we could fight our way out,” she said.
“At the time, I didn't have the words to explain why that was so uncomfortable and scary.”
When it came to Queerness, O’Connor remembers her gym teacher looking up the word ‘Trans’ on the projector and simply giving them the Merriam-Webster definition. While her class spoke a bit about the concepts of gender identity and sexual orientation, they didn’t provide any practical guidance for how to practice safe sex.
“I think Queer sex was so absent from any discussions of sexuality that it meant there was really no understanding of how to be safe or practice harm reduction in Queer relationships. I definitely would have thought, ‘Oh, why would you need protection for Queer sex?’ ‘There's no possibility of pregnancy, then why would you need that?’”
O’Connor noted there was no curriculum for teachers to follow, so the level of education varied teacher by teacher — many of O’Connor’s teachers took a fear-based approach to teaching that encouraged students to avoid sex.
“In Ontario, there was so little kind of guidance or training that went into sex ed that teachers would essentially say whatever they wanted,” she said. “I had friends who went to the same school as me who got really amazing sex ed because they had a teacher who really cared about it, and I just got pretty unlucky with teachers who had more problematic or more traditional views.”
O’Connor saw her school’s gay-straight alliance (GSA) as a rare space where she could feel comfortable talking about Queerness.
In Nilsa Nilli’s case, her school’s GSA initiated and led Queer sex ed workshops by reaching out to health care workers and sexual educators that could come in to speak to students that wanted to listen — it made up for what she perceived as a lack of care from the educators and administration team at her Burnaby high school.
“It wouldn't have happened without them … it was probably the most pleasant sex ed experience I've had,” said Nilli, who is now a second-year English literature student at UBC.
“The admin team, the principal — I don't really think anyone really cared enough to put in more effort than what was given by the district. And the district didn't care enough to give more than what was given to them.”
Nilli mentioned that part of maintaining the safe atmosphere of GSA-facilitated workshops and other Queer spaces was to advertise by word-of-mouth within circles of friends.
But what about the students who are still questioning their sexuality or don’t know these resources exist? Keeping this information reserved for a space that’s not accessible — even though it is for safety reasons — doesn’t allow everyone who may need this information an equal opportunity to hear it. According to Action Canada’s report, Queer sex ed should be incorporated into all sex ed classes, which should be more standardized between schools.
Although it would be best for this learning to happen in schools, if students don’t learn about something in class, they will turn to other channels.
Sexton, O’Connor and Nilli all noted that friends, the internet and media — specifically the TV show Glee which, as problematic as it was at times, was a pioneer of Queer representation — became their main sources of information surrounding sex and Queerness.
“A lot of my sex ed that I've learned [has] been online. It's been through friends, it's been through GSA and community-run organizations,” said Nilli.
For O’Connor, one of the biggest things she'd like to see changed in the education system is more emphasis on sex positivity.
“I would say the biggest thing that I want added into sex ed, even more foundationally, than just information about Queer relationships, is the idea that you can want as much or as little sex as you want,” she said.
Wiebe highlighted how often teachers tend to emphasize combatting homophobia and gloss over other discussions of how to support Queer students — again, centring sex ed around fear and avoidance instead of encouraging students to be curious and ask questions.
“Teachers are trained to teach what they teach … but not sexuality — not tender, sensitive, triggering topics,” said Wiebe.
“I have so much empathy for teachers that are there and trying to make a difference. Some of them are so amazing just by being their Queer selves … those folks that are working like that, they're doing all they can.”
For teachers to be able to successfully teach sex ed and everything that encompasses, the current system needs to be reformed. The building blocks of the problem continue to be a lack of foundation and oversight from government organizations, and without the proper funding or care, the quality of students’ sex ed will be left up to luck.
“The school district does not understand what it means to be a Queer student, what it means to be a teenager, and I think that that's really important,” said Nilli.
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