Across the country recently, there has been an increasing pushback on having LGBTQ+ topics in schools.
Famously, Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act has caused a lot of controversy, with critics calling it the “Don’t Say Gay” law. It prohibits “classroom instruction” about “sexual orientation or gender identity” for kindergarten through grade 3 and instruction that is “not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate.”
Laws like this one are incredibly vague and may be twisted by people who don’t like the LGBTQ+ community. This kind of legislation is pushing the country in the wrong direction.
According to the American Psychological Association, curriculum laws that are against the LGBTQ+ community are based on stereotypes and outdated information and they limit access to helpful public health information.
We should be trying to make schools inclusive of the queer community. While I know this idea applies to an older group of students than Florida's law, I believe that one way to do that is by having LGBTQ+-inclusive sex education for students. Research has found that inclusive sex education can lead to many positive outcomes, some of which affect straight students.
The high school I went to was not a safe place for LGBTQ+ youth, and we did not cover LGBTQ+ topics in sex education beyond maybe a sentence or two. To be honest, my high school barely gave any sex education to anyone, straights included, which may have contributed to how one boy in my grade knocked up a girl during our senior year.
Inclusive sex education can make queer students feel safer and improve their sexual health.
A study published in RMLE Online: Research in Middle Level Education in 2024 found that after going through an LGBTQ+ inclusive sexual health education program, students reported that they had “an increased sense of personal safety.”
The journal article suggests that students feel safer because discussing queer topics in public normalizes being queer and makes students feel more accepted. I know that I and probably most LGBTQ+ youth would like to feel like it’s okay to openly talk about the LGBTQ+ community. It is very common for us to feel like we have to hide.
A systematic literature review in the Journal of Adolescent Health mentions that LGBTQ+-inclusive sex education was found to be related to healthier gay, lesbian, and bisexual students. They had “fewer sex partners, less use of drugs or alcohol before sex, less pregnancy, and better school attendance.”
Inclusive sex education can also benefit straight students.
The systematic review found that comprehensive sex education can reduce amounts of homophobic bullying. As the American Psychological Association helpfully points out, homophobic bullying can also target straight students. This means that a decrease in it will benefit everybody.
One study in the review found that inclusion of things like sexual orientation and gender identity reduced the amount of name-calling and made more people willing to stand up to name-calling. Outcomes like this had a positive effect on school vibes.
Even if this only benefited LGBTQ+ students and you don’t like the LGBTQ+ community, bullying is something that is widely considered to be harmful and dangerous. There are numerous programs dedicated to reducing bullying in schools.
I witnessed the bullying of LGBTQ+ students because of their sexual orientation in my high school. It was on the school bus, in classrooms, in the hallways, etc. I’m sure many of the queer students that went there were afraid to come out after seeing this type of behavior.
It has also been found that bullying can lead to poor mental health. The systematic literature review says that having LGBTQ+-inclusive sex education is related to all youth reporting to have less suicidal thoughts. It is possible that this is related to the reduced bullying mentioned earlier, or the increased sense of personal safety.
Furthermore, the RMLE article says,” ... students also reported that learning about topics like gender identity and sexual orientation was important and useful."
This was said by students both inside and outside the community. Non-LGBTQ+ students found that they learned more about how to interact with and support their LGBTQ+ peers.
If there is anything most schools want, it is probably to have students saying that the stuff they are being taught is important and useful. One major criticism of American schools is that they don’t teach real life skills, so why wouldn’t schools want to jump at the opportunity to teach something that students may actually use?
So, it has been found that inclusive sex education can reduce homophobic bullying, suicidal thoughts, and was found to be valuable by students. These outcomes benefit all kinds of students, not just the LGBTQ+ ones.
The main argument opponents give is that they want to decide for themselves how they teach their children about sexuality. It is understandable. Most parents really do want to teach their children certain values and will get upset if someone tries to impede that.
Michael Fernandez
However, the studies show that children learning about this stuff is not harmful to them, and parents can still talk to their children about sexuality outside of school.
Laws like Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act are going to harm the students they are meant to “protect”. The LGBTQ+ community needs to feel safe and included in school, not prohibited from being talked about.
We need to push back against laws like these, and push for things like inclusive sex education. With the increase in anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric recently, LGBTQ+ students need you to stand up for them now more than ever.
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