Sex Education as a Vehicle for Social Change

Across the United States, the overall state of sex education is inconsistent, inaccurate, and non-inclusive. Less than 40% of high schools and only 14% of middle schools meet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines for sex education. Chris Harley, President and CEO at SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change, talks to us about why we need sex education that is medically-accurate, inclusive of all genders and sexual orientations, and stresses topics like consent, healthy relationships, and more.

Abstinence-only education is mandated in 29 states. This negative lens of sex prevents young people from being able to develop healthy ideas, relationships, and general understanding around sex and anatomy. Rather than stopping young people from having sex, young people should be provided with the tools and skills to navigate healthy relationships and sexual and reproductive health decision-making. In order to shift the conversation on sex education into a more positive one, SIECUS is in the process of rebranding to SIECUS: Sex Education for Social Change. The new rebranding will be positioned to sit at the intersection of racial justice, gender equity, and queer liberation.

Reproductive justice is a framework in which we recognize the realities of people of low income, women of color, and queer and trans folks who are accessing reproductive healthcare. Sex education can teach young people to have agency over their bodies, respect the boundaries of others, manage their own healthcare, and more. This is directly connected to the issues included in the reproductive justice framework.

Sex education can be a vehicle for queer liberation, as inclusive sex education would teach them skills, knowledge, and self-value. When sex education is inclusive of LGBTQ youth, it can be life-saving.

Sexual violence and lack of consent is widespread in the United States. Teaching children and young people how to recognize unhealthy relationships and bodily autonomy can prevent sexual violence.

Telling young girls and women that it is their sole responsibility to prevent sexual violence, and that their worth is tied to their sexuality is extremely damaging and promotes gender inequity. Sex education also provides women and girls with the vital tools and information they need to make decisions about their own health and bodies.

In terms of racial justice, it is critical in this time in history to reaffirm and support the sexuality and reproductive health and rights of people of color. Sex educators have the ability to explore with students how systemically-racist institutions have led to the major reproductive and sexual health issues that we face today.

Links from this episode

SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change
SIECUS on Facebook
SIECUS on Twitter
Podcast episode on reproductive justice
Podcast episode on reproductive justice and intersectionality
Podcast episode on sex education in the U.S.
Real Education for Healthy Youth Act of 2019
Youth Access to Sexual Health Services Act of 2019

Transcript

Jennie: Welcome to rePROs Fight Back a podcast on all things repro. I'm your host Jennie Wetter. In each episode, I'll be taking you to the front lines of the escalating fight over our sexual and reproductive health and rights at home and abroad. Each episode, I will be speaking with leaders who are fighting to protect our reproductive health and rights to ensure that no one's reproductive health depends on where they live. It's time for repros to fight back.

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Jennie: Hi everyone and welcome to this week's episode of RePROs Fight Back. Today we are going to talk about one of my favorite subjects and it's not something I get to talk about very often in my daily job and that is sex education. Now, if you've listened to the podcast before, you may know that my experience of sex education was less than ideal. I went to Catholic school, so when I had sex ed I was taught by a nun and it was definitely in the Mean Girls variety. So you have sex, you're going to get this horrible disease and you're going to die. So I'm excited to talk about what good sex ed can look like. Join me today. I'm excited to have Chris Harley, President and CEO of SIECUS.

Chris: Hi, how are you? It's so great to be here.

Jennie: I'm great. And that makes sense to talk about sex ed as am I. So what does sex education look like across the country right now?

Chris: Well, I think as you know and as your experience has shown you, the overall state of sex education in this country is pretty terrible in most of the cases is inconsistent. Folks are not getting accurate information. There's a lot of abstinence only that is being taught around the country. And the baddest part about that is that the actual lived experiences of young people, particularly youth of color and LGBTQ youth are missing from these curriculums. I have some statistics also that less than 40% of high schools and only 14% of middle schools across the United States even meet our minimum guidelines that are, have been established by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention for how to teach sex education. Oh yeah. Kind of shocking in 2019 right. Which has been I think the state of the world overall like that this is all still happening in 2019 but you know some additional statistics, and I think that your listeners have heard this before, but only 27 states and DC even mandate that both sex education and HIV AIDS education is provided. Only 17 states require that sex education be medically accurate, which is alarming. Only 10 states and DC have sex education policies that are inclusive of sexual orientation. Only eight states and DC teach about consent, which is additionally alarming in the Me Too era. And then there are 29 states though that mandate that sex education stress abstinence only. And there are six states in our country that have what they call no promo homo laws, which means that they cannot talk about sexual orientation or LGBTQ identity in a positive way.

Jennie: Those are all really scary. And I was thinking back to my sex education earlier when I was walking to the office and about how it's great to see states are starting to require talking about consent even though it's so few because again, the model I had was consent wasn't even really talked about as, and it's on the girl to consent. It was like the girl was responsible for if you had sex or not, but in that slut shame way… like shaming you, it's all on you. It's all your responsibility. So not super helpful ways to learn sex again that actually perpetuate rape culture.

Chris: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Jennie: It's so frustrating to me and I, it just seems so fundamental that you would want kids to have the most basic information to make healthy decisions later in life.

Chris: Yeah, absolutely. Right. Uh, and I think it is in fact why we need sex education to be medically accurate, developmentally appropriate for students across this country because we know that young people are experimenting and you know, starting to engage in different activities at very young ages. And if we're not providing them with the information about how to approach that and how to engage in healthy relationships, we're just setting them up for failure.

Jennie: Absolutely. They're going to get that information somewhere else. Not in a good way.

Chris: Right. Generally. Right.

Jennie: So we already talked a little bit about this, but what's missing right now?

Chris: Yeah, so I think the easier question to ask is, uh, what's not missing from the sex education right? Particularly in these 29 states that are emphasizing abstinence only, which is probably one of the most harmful lessons that young people are being taught that, um, the only way to prevent any kind of harm from happening in their, in their lifetime is to abstain from sex until marriage. Most programs, the way that we have talked about sex education for the most part of our history is around prevention, either pregnancy prevention or disease prevention, which is very shaming and stigmatizing of young people and actually doesn't allow them to establish healthy ideas and behaviors. I think the other thing that we're very concerned about is the way that the negative focus on sexual health outcomes prevents young people from having a complete understanding of sex and sexuality. At SEICUS, we believe very much that young people need to learn about things like enthusiastic consent, healthy relationships, sexual and gender identities and so much more. We want to provide young people with the information, language and skills to navigate intimate relationships as well as their own sexual and reproductive health decision making. We think that sex education needs to include conversations about access and the role that sex education can play in perpetuating sexual and reproductive health disparities for people of color and low or no income folks is really important for us to dig in to make sure that we are providing comprehensive understanding for young people, that it's not just about their own individual behavior, but the systems in which sex education interacts with our systems that can otherwise prevent young people from being able to make their own decisions. So when we talk about, you know, what's missing in sex education, you know, we're obviously very concerned about what the abstinence, only until marriage programs are promoting and the ways in which that, as we said, can perpetuate rape culture. We know that these programs are ineffective at achieving their own objectives, which is to stop young people from having sex. And in fact they are making things far more dangerous for the young people that they're teaching. They're not teaching them to use things like contraception or how to navigate a healthy relationship. So, you know, I think that there is a couple of different ways in which seek is interested in shifting the conversation around sex education. One is to really emphasize how abstinence only programs are serving our young people. And then the second part is that we really want to begin to think about sex education differently and in the positive aspects that sex education can play both in providing skills building for young people and for making a positive impact on our society by thinking about how sex education can actually move us forward on issues like sexual violence, teaching about consent, you know, recognizing and uplifting and validating the experiences of LGBTQ youth, et cetera.

Jennie: So that leads us perfectly into your new program?

Chris: So we are re-framing.

Jennie: So this leads us perfectly into your new reframing sex education for social change. So why don't you tell us a little bit what is it?

Chris: Well thank you so much for asking. I'm, I'm very excited to share that we are actually going to be rebranding SIECUS as of the date that your listeners are hearing this podcast. SIECUS is now officially rebranding our organization to go by SIECUS: Sex ed for Social Change. But the origins of this is really from the time that I started at SIECUS, so about six weeks into my time serving as the interim president of SIECUS, I was asked to speak to a room of 150 sex educators about their work and not having a background in sex education. I was thinking of what do I have to say? And I started to think about the importance of sex education and the role that it could play in our society. And what really stuck out to me was thinking, well, what would the world look like if we actually had comprehensive sex education being taught to our young people? And that made me realize just the profound and transformative impact that sex education would actually have on our society if we taught it in a comprehensive sex positive way where young people weren't shamed around having sex. But we're being given the information, the tools, the skills, the understanding to be able to navigate their own bodies and their relationships with other people in ways that are far more healthy than what we as a society have been teaching our young people. And so I quickly realized sex education cannot just be about preventing unintended pregnancies or sexually transmitted infections. We really have to talk about the critical role that sex education can play in normalizing human sexuality. Teaching young people about consent, affirming everyone's sexuality and relationship to their race, gender and sexual identities. And then if we had that kind of universal comprehensive sex education, our society would be completely transformed. I mean, I should say that this was also happening right at the time that the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings were happening and women were just…women and people around the country were pouring out their stories of the harm that has happened. And hearing people express this lack of understanding of what consent was. And you know, we have all kinds of solutions for supporting survivors, but sex education is a prevention strategy, right? And so as we started to think about what sex education as a vehicle for social change could look like at SIECUS, it really helped us to articulate this vision of our hope for the future and also as a call to action for the field that we have to meet the needs of today's diverse and vibrant young people and we need to do it with urgency. And so a year later, SIECUS is officially rebranding our organization as a way of institutionalizing this frame for our organization and how we're approaching sex education policy. And we are saying that SIECUS is committed to advancing sex education as a vehicle for social change. Working towards a world where all people can access and enjoy sexual and reproductive freedom as they define it for themselves.

Jennie: I love that “enjoys” in there because that is absolutely the one thing that is never talked about and is often left out is what is like the number one reason most people have sex. Like we never talk about pleasure and sex ed never talks about pleasure.

Chris: Yeah, that's right.

Jennie: I love that it's in there.

Chris: Yeah, thank you. Um, I think the other thing that I need to say is that as part of our framing around sex education for social change, we are also positioning sex education to really sit at that intersection of racial justice, gender equity and queer liberation. We are calling ourselves a sexual and reproductive freedom organization that believes that sex education is essential for human liberation. And we are really focused on making sure that we're centering the actual lived experiences of marginalized young people, especially those that sit at that intersection. Because I'm often very concerned about the ways that our social progress can leave behind the folks that are most vulnerable and at need of those policy solutions. And so we are advancing medically accurate age and developmentally appropriate comprehensive sex education as a means of building this foundation for our long-term culture shift. We've got to make sure that we're doing so by centering the voices of those that really could most benefit from a positive shift in our society. And it's a really focusing on those issues of sexuality, sexual and reproductive health, gender equity, racial justice, LGBTQ equality, consent and bodily autonomy.

Jennie: That's so great. And each of those parts are so big in and of themselves. So maybe we'll just take a little bit of time and talk a little bit about each of the parts. So maybe we'll start with reproductive justice. How are we going to have reproductive justice exhibited in sex ed?

Chris: Yeah, no thanks so much for asking about reproductive justice because I think that that's so foundational to the way that the reproductive field is starting to think about our work globally. So reproductive justice and sex education, I think it's actually really important. So first of all, just to make sure that we're level setting, reproductive justice is a framework in which we recognize the realities of people with low income women of color, queer and trans folks and those who live with all of these identities combined and really centering the intersectionality of these experiences and access to reproductive health care, particularly when it comes to abortion. And I think that from my perspective, sex education becomes an issue that reproductive justice advocates are fighting for and is a powerful vehicle for advancing reproductive justice itself. That if we are able to shift sex education away from just being about negative health outcomes and are actually providing truly comprehensive sex education for young people, we're actually setting a foundation for students to not only receive accurate information about their own sexual and reproductive health, but also to learn and understand the principles of reproductive justice. Because sex education can teach young people to have agencies over their own bodies to respect the autonomy of others. It can teach young people about accurate information and how to navigate intimate relationships and manage their own healthcare. Um, and it should be making the connection to these most pressing reproductive justice issues of our time talking about abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, immigration, racism, rape culture and education inequality. And so if you are thinking about how do we get comprehensive sex education that's culturally responsive, LGBTQ inclusive, it's taught without shaming or stigmatizing lessons that it doesn't label certain groups or people as risk factors and also addresses and acknowledges the systemic inequalities that makes it more difficult for some people to experience negative health outcomes and the stereotypes that are both racialized and sexualized. That can put people of color at greater risk of experiencing violence. It opens up this door to lay a foundation that advances the tenants of reproductive justice and it creates an opening for folks to want to learn and explore that further. So I think that sex education that integrates lessons on discrimination and racism on conscious and unconscious bias and that acknowledges social determinants of health, particularly related to race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status really advances and lays the foundation for the ha for us to have a comprehensive understanding about the tenants of reproductive justice.

Jennie: You have so important because I mean again, I definitely never had it. That's kind of background and you know, it's a great way to help address issues that we're seeing now going forward.

Chris: Yeah, yeah, I think that that's right. And because I think it's so important for us to be understanding sex education also from an equity and equality perspective. And once you start to incorporate those lessons into these programs, you know, it's inevitable that people understand the importance of reproductive justice as a framework for approaching, you know, reproductive rights, reproductive health, reproductive access. So another one of the tenants you have going forward is working on LGBTQ equality.

Jennie: So some of these are kind of, clearly they're all very interwoven, but I think it's good to kind of talk about the parts. So let's talk about LGBTQ equality in sex ed.

Chris: Yeah. And I that this is actually one of the most important tenants for us to really emphasize and lean into. Sex education can be a vehicle for queer liberation. Today less than 1 in 10 LGBTQ students reports receiving lessons at schools that are inclusive of their identities. And when you think about what that means for their own sense of value and worth in this school, and also potentially the environment in which they are then studying, it puts them at such risk of self harm or a bullying or of, of feeling less than. And so I think that it's not that I think that I actually, we actually know there are studies that demonstrate that when sex education is inclusive of LGBTQ youth, it can be lifesaving. It can change the environment in which they're learning. It can validate their experiences and it can teach their heteronormative peers to have greater affirmation of their LGBTQ peers. And so we know that it can be llifesaving We know that it can shift their experiences in schools, but I think that in order for sex education to be a vehicle for queer liberation, we really need to be able to provide accurate information about sexual activity that's relevant and useful for all students, not just heterosexual students. So we need to be teaching about and affirming all gender identities and all sexual orientations and medically accurate and age and developmentally appropriate ways as well. And I think that sex education can do that, particularly in a very fact based and medically sensitive sort of way, which just creates the setting for conversation that normalizes all human sexual activity. So while there are a few organizations including SIECUS that have begun to develop these kinds of guidance resources and tools that can help educators at schools think about how to incorporate these kinds of lessons, we know that we need to do more. There are some gaps in providing sex education that meets the needs of transgender and non-binary youth. And that's a increasingly growing population of young people who need to have information that medically accurate. Um, and I know that many parents are starting to call for these kinds of resources. So we know that these are the things that we need and can do. And I think that sex education that's informed by a reproductive justice lens by a queer liberation lens, not just beneficial for youth of color and queer kids, but really ensures that all of us are able to grow up in a safe and affirming and in respectful environments. And so, you know, that's what we're trying to push.

Jennie: That's another one that hits particularly close to home. I grew up in rural Wisconsin and so, you know, there was not this of diversity and when I was in high school was in like the mid-nineties mid to late nineties and so it was just totally different from now. So you can definitely see what blessing and change it would be to have an LGBTQ inclusive sex education that would have made my rural high school a much more welcoming environment to students who definitely felt like they couldn't come out back then.

Chris: Yep. And I think that it's really just, you don't, being able to talk about these things like openly and frankly it helps create spaces where, you know, everyone is able to ask questions and to recognize and realize that there's just such a diversity of the human experience. Um, I actually remember learning about intersex when I was in school and it was factual and it was just information and it like changed things like, okay, some people are going to have this experience. It has nothing to do with anything they have particular control over. And that's just the way the things are, you know? And I feel like creating that kind of opportunity, here are some people who prefer things this way here. Some people would prefer things this way. Here's the way that you need to practice safe sex in any of these kinds of, um, situations or behaviors. Yeah.

Jennie: So also behind that we also have another area that, again, only eight states talk about consent. So the importance of having a tenant focusing on sexual violence prevention.

Chris: Yeah. And I think that far beyond consent, obviously, right? But I do think that this is one of those areas that the me too movement has started to demonstrate a bit of a shift on, I know that we have been working with some states in the South where, you know, even Republican state legislators are interested in trying to get consent into the schools because they know that it's something that they can do and that public is really calling for. And so I think that these are the kinds of openings that are a little bit of a win. But you know, I think that sexual violence has been just such a huge and seemingly unsolvable problem in our country for such a long time. And the Me Too movement really brought out just how widespread this is. And as I was thinking about this, that you know, it just, it makes me so crazy because when we hear from abstinence only or these what they call sexual risk avoidance agitators and they're like, Oh, you know, these SIECUS folks, they want to get into our schools and teach porn to kindergarteners. And you know, you know that, that somehow if we teach kids about, you know, their own body and having autonomy over their own body, that that's, you know, a bad thing. And it makes me angry because this is actually how we keep our kids safe because we can teach them about what is a good and bad touch and who, who they can allow or not allow to touch their bodies. And like that just lays the grounding for us to be able as a country and as a society to recognize our bodies as our own bodies. And so I get crazy in that thought cloud, but really what this just shows is that we've got to do so much more to talk about the role that sex education can play in teaching and encouraging young people to practice enthusiastic consent to develop. And maintain healthy relationships, how to recognize and leave unhealthy ones that these can be concepts that uh, young people are taught early on. And we know through research that this actually is an effective method of sexual violence prevention, which again has potential of being lifesaving. And we don't talk about it or think about it that way. But you know, if we were to teach young kids very early on, no, this is inappropriate, this is not good behavior for a healthy relationship, we actually give them the tools to be able to identify warning signs early on. So, and that's so important at that age because that's been shown to be one of those ages where you do see a lot of violence in relationships.

Jennie: Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah.

Chris: So, you know, I think that we are asserting sex education as probably the only policy solution that we have that can act as a vehicle for addressing sexual and intimate partner violence in a preventative way, which I think is incredibly important. So we want to be teaching kids about respecting boundaries. You know, asking before, touching, knowing who to go to if they feel uncomfortable in a situation, doing all of this at really starting really young, but in developmentally and age appropriate ways that when, when we're first talking about consent, it's not on a college campus. When we know that the rates of sexual violence and assault are just becoming astronomical and it's because we failed them when they were kids.

Jennie: Absolutely. So I think that also leads into another tenant that is really important to teach and feeds into the power dynamics and all this and that. Gender equity.

Chris: Yeah, I mean I feel like, you know, it's almost, you almost start to become a broken record, right? Because there's just so much that if we actually taught comprehensive sex education that we could just resolve or not resolve, but at least provide young people with the information, tools and skills that they need to be able to navigate these things in more effective ways. And I think particularly, you know, we keep talking about in 2019 we're still dealing with this. This is one of those things, right? In 2019 because we haven't as a nation invested in comprehensive sex education. We still are dealing with gender inequalities that are mind blowing and boggling. And I think that, you know, sex education, again, if you're, if you focus beyond merely just preventing negative health outcomes or potential risks such as unintended pregnancy or STIs which get over emphasized in the conversation, there is this tendency and you and you talk about it in your instruction, placing this burden on women and girls to be the ones that are mitigating sexual harm and you know, abstinence only these, these sexual risk avoidance programs are famous for telling young people that there were no more than a cup of spit or chewed gum if they have sex. And then it's their responsibility from preventing someone else from violating their own body against their will. The day that we're recording this, um, there is a gum wall that's on the mall talking about this very thing that I can't imagine being a parent and having my child come home from school and telling me that their teacher taught them that they're worth as much as chewed gum if they have sex. We heard a parent share this exact story at a congressional briefing earlier this year and it just broke my heart to imagine a 12-year-old girl coming home to her mother and sharing this kind of thing. So, you know, I think that what we can instead be doing is teaching sex education that enables youth to have agency over their own bodies and to respect the autonomy of others, which is empowering to all of us. And it also teaches boys and girls the life skills that they need to grow into respectful, properly functioning human beings that know how to engage with other people in ways that are healthy and good. And so, you know, as I said earlier, we've got to be teaching about enthusiastic consent, how to develop and maintain healthy relationships, how to recognize and leave unhealthy ones that this is something that's not just a responsibility of the female but is the responsibility of everyone who's engaging in any kind of intimate or friend relationship. And that I think also if we teach young people to really value bodily autonomy, it also makes sure that we grow up knowing that we have the ability to manage our own sexual and reproductive health. That and that includes, you know, being able to make decisions about pregnancy and prevention and about abortion, right? That these are decisions that we control, that relate to our own bodies. And it shifts the conversation that we can have in this country about sexual reproductive health care, access to reproductive healthcare services. And the other thing that I'll say is that it is really important that sex education continue to recognize the diversity of sexual orientation and gender identity. So when we talk about gender equity, we're not just talking about, you know, for cis women, right? We are talking about enabling us as a society to recognize that diversity of experience in its entirety and creating the opportunities for young people to explore and to become the people that they know inherently themselves to be. And that when we move beyond these kinds of binaries and recognize the diversity of our youth, we're actually empowering young people to make the best and most informed decisions for themselves and leading, you know, far happier and healthier lives, which is what I think all of us should want.

Jennie: What always kind of boggled my mind about people who are against sex ed is to me that's the bottom line, right? We’re talking about ways to ensure that kids live happier and healthier lives.

Chris: Yeah, absolutely. Why? Why are you against it?

Jennie: And then there was one last tenant and that's racial justice.

Chris: Yeah, and I actually think that this is one of the ones that's the most important for us to speak aloud in the field. I have found that in the year that SIECUS has started to talk about sex ed for social change. When we talk about racial justice, it's has been the piece where we've gotten the most pushback and I think that oftentimes sex educators don't necessarily see themselves having a role to play in dismantling white supremacy. I will say that I beg to differ, you know, I think it's actually really important for the field that is committed to normalizing human sexuality. We have a really critical role in reasserting and affirming the sexuality of people of color. We've just spent the past few years witnessing how white supremacists are pushing policies that are designed to slow the inevitable demographic transition of the United States from being a majority white to a majority minority country. And as somebody who identifies as a person of color who has seen the ways in which racial prejudice and systemic racism have shaped the policies of our country, I think we have to really acknowledge the fundamental way in which our nation has relied on really dehumanizing stereotypes that recast racial minorities as being either sexually deviant or sexually dangerous as the basis for institutionalizing racism. And when you think about this from our very first immigration laws, which passed Chinese women as prostitutes in order to prevent Chinese American families from being able to immigrate and form here to, you know, what we see now, the enforcement laws that are targeting specifically Latino families in order to tear them apart and to prevent them from living and thriving in this country. When you think about the way that policies have shaped our social safety net system, demonizing the production of black and Brown women in particular to housing, to policing, incarceration, our nation's policies are systemically designed, disrupt the establishment and the stability of people of color, families of color on this country. And so I think that sex educators actually have a really important job to de-stigmatize and affirm the sexual and reproductive rights of people of color that we have to acknowledge the ways in which our systems of white supremacy have put people at harm and at risk and that have caused the root of so many of our most pressing sexual and reproductive health and rights injustices that we continue to experience today. We have to speak this aloud. We have to really step into the part that we can play in dismantling white supremacy because we are seeing the impacts that it can when it's not being challenged and how much it tears at the fabric of our country. And again, so important to give young people the tools they need to help dismantle these stereotypes. It's right. And if we are teaching young people to understand these stereotypes and the systems in which they evolve from, we're actually giving people, young people the tools to recognize and to move past those racial injustices, the stereotyping, and to have an analysis of these systems that help us heal as a country and see the systems, right. So important is so many people don't necessarily, they may see the incident but they don't see the systems around it.

Jennie: This all sounds so important and really would be wonderful if we could see it all happen. So we're working real hard. What can we do to make it happen? What can listeners do?

Chris: Yeah, so I mean I should just say that SIECUS is a policy advocacy organization. We are not the organizations that are going into the classrooms and teaching young kids. But as a policy and advocacy organization that's based in DC, we do have a few federal policy initiatives that, you know, we're always championing. So the first one is the Real Education for Healthy Youth Act or REHYA. It's led by Representative Barbara Lee and Senator Cory Booker. And it would be the first ever federal funding for comprehensive sex education. So, you know, we should just be really clear that right now, millions and millions and millions of dollars goes to support abstinence only or sexual risk avoidance programs around this country. That's why you see it so pervasively. And there's very little funding that's going to programs that provide more comprehensive sex education. There's no funding from the federal government that goes to actually fund comprehensive sex education policy, comprehensive sex education programs. And so REYHA would eliminate funding for those failed abstinence only, um, sexual risk avoidance programs. And then it would re direct that money to fund programs that doesn't stigmatize sexuality and also affirms LGBTQ youth. The second major federal bill that we focus on is the Youth Access to Sexual Health Services Act or what we call YAS. What this program would do is to provide grants to increase access to sexual and reproductive health care and related services for marginalized young people. So we obviously know the education is so important, but without access to the services that education can only go so far. So this is to ensure that marginalized young people who typically would have the least amount of access to healthcare services are able to um, get it. So obviously there's not much happening in terms of federal legislation. So we are actively focusing on the state level and what's been really great is just in June we launched our program, what we call SEPAC. It's the State Sex Education Policy Action Council. We are in 25 states and we are working to provide a technical policy assistance to state activists and advocates who want to advance comprehensive sex education policies to do that in their communities. And so far we have been able to help, I think 18 states make progress on implementing or moving forward new legislation to support comprehensive sex education. We actually just recently posted a blog called five steps to take right now to advance sex education wherever you live and it provides a couple of super quick impactful ways that young people can really dive into thinking about how to move sex education for social change forward. We typically suggest that you start, um, just by doing your homework and finding out what is the policy actually in your state. We also have a community action toolkit that covers those five steps that are referenced in the blog post and provides a lot more information in detail for how to implement from sample letters to policymakers to tips for working with local school boards. There's a variety of actions that are provided in the toolkit, giving guidance on how to implement it. And I think it's really important for us to remember that people overwhelmingly support sex education. We just have to be braver and bolder about speaking it out loud and not letting you know the shaming scare tactics of those who oppose sex education from preventing us from really protecting the health and wellbeing of our young people.

Jennie: Chris, thank you so much for being here.

Chris: Yeah, thanks so much for having me. This was really wonderful.

Jennie: It was great and I learned a lot and it's wonderful to have a lot of solid actions that people can take.

Jennie: Thanks for listening everyone. And we'll see you on our next episode of RePROS Fight Back. For more information, including show notes from this episode and previous episodes, please visit our website at reprosfightback.com. You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter at RePROS Fight Back. If you like our show, please help others find it by sharing it with your friends and subscribing, rating and reviewing us on iTunes. Thanks for listening.

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