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LGBT+ Education in schools


ProfByleth

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Hi all,

 

I've just come back from spending the day at a conference run by the UK's Department for Education.  As you may or may not know, from September 2020 all primary and secondary schools will be required to teach Health and Relationships education to children.  The new guidance makes it compulsory for secondary schools to teach about LGBT in the context of relationships, respect and equality, and it is "strongly suggested" that primary schools do the same in age appropriate way.

 

This has been a genuinely positive step - people have been campaigning for this for the last 30 years and it is a really exciting development (and despite some bad publicity and protests by some groups), very popular amongst teachers, parents and children.

 

However as I was sitting listening to the presentations today, I was thinking about that hidden 'A' buried in that little + at the end of LGBT.  Asexuality is not specifically mentioned in the new guidance, and wasn't mentioned today.  Although there is a move towards using more gender neutral language (to show increasing awareness of trans children and that children may choose to have a 'partner' rather than specifically a boyfriend or girlfriend), it's interesting that we still have some work to do in terms of recognising the potential asexuals we have in the classroom.  There still seems to be an assumption that all children will want to have sex and romantic relationships when they get older, and that the ideal, full life we are preparing them for should include sex and romantic relationships.

 

I'm curious what the asexual community makes of this (especially during awareness week).  Do you think educators should use asexual inclusive language?  Should we be trying to move towards language that suggests that children may not develop sexual or romantic attraction, rather than assuming they definitely will?  Should we be making some noise to make sure sex education in schools also teaches that children may not develop sexual attraction, and the differences between libido, sexual attraction and romantic attraction?

 

Any thoughts or experiences that people would like to share would be really interesting!

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everywhere and nowhere

And here in Poland a proposed law is being processed which would effectively criminalise sex ed under the guise of "fighting pedophilia"...

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IDK who I am tho

Yeah, I definitely hope asexuality is included in these education plans. 

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42 minutes ago, ProfByleth said:

...Do you think educators should use asexual inclusive language?  Should we be trying to move towards language that suggests that children may not develop sexual or romantic attraction, rather than assuming they definitely will?  Should we be making some noise to make sure sex education in schools also teaches that children may not develop sexual attraction..."

Yes, I think so. When I was first taught sex ed and puberty at 10 years of age, I felt as though the teachers were implying that everyone will want to have sex when they're older, become pregnant, etc. So, I felt repulsed by all of it and worried that that stuff would be expected of me, when I was older.

 

I felt different from my friends and classmates, especially a year later, when they all talked about crushes on classmates and celebrities they liked.

 

So, I would've appreciated reassurance at that age that it was okay and normal to not be sexually/romantically interested in other people, not wanting children or becoming pregnant, etc. because after that, I spent my entire teens feeling strange and different from others and worried that there was something wrong with me for not being like my peers who were dating, in a relationship, who had had sex, etc.

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having more inclusive sex ed is a great next step! I grew up in a small christian school where even pda was looked down upon. I didn't know there were options outside of being cis-straight until I was out in the real world.

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41 minutes ago, LeChat said:

Yes, I think so. When I was first taught sex ed and puberty at 10 years of age, I felt as though the teachers were implying that everyone will want to have sex when they're older, become pregnant, etc. So, I felt repulsed by all of it and worried that that stuff would be expected of me, when I was older.

 

I felt different from my friends and classmates, especially a year later, when they all talked about crushes on classmates and celebrities they liked.

 

So, I would've appreciated reassurance at that age that it was okay and normal to not be sexually/romantically interested in other people, not wanting children or becoming pregnant, etc. because after that, I spent my entire teens feeling strange and different from others and worried that there was something wrong with me for not being like my peers who were dating, in a relationship, who had had sex, etc.

Yes, this is the kind of experience I'd assumed must be happening.  It really feels like something we could do better as educators.  Thanks for sharing.

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The LGBTQ+ part of the sex ed we had was basically around 10 minutes and was based around the teacher asking if we know any other sexualities more than hetero and then him writing it on the whiteboard. And that was it basically. I think I was around 14 then. It was really awkward in the way the whole thing was handed. 

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Yeah it definitely needs to consider how they handle the subjects first. Whilst asexual awareness is important, the fact is that it definitely needed that improvement. 

I swear the old system was just “here’s the contraceptives to stop you getting pregnant, here’s the STDs / STIs you could get if you don’t use protection”. Or at very least that’s all I got at school. At this point, any added information is always useful. 

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KuraTheChibiSleepingBeauty

I went to a sex education class once. I had my hands over my ears the whole time. Rarely in my life have I wanted to run away so strongly. My mum was all 'you need to know these things' and I was all 'No, I don't, ever!' I think that may have been one of the biggest indications of my 'aceness', but I didn't recognize it at the time. 

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Phoenixflower

I would already  totally love it, if this or future forms of "relationship education" would transport the idea of "(fast) alles geht, nichts muss", as we'd say in german (

"(nearly) everything is okay, nothing is compulsory"). Because I think people are highly complex and their relationships even more so, so you'll never cover everything. But I think being teached early on that you have the power to define your close relationships to others in whatever way you choose to is an important lesson.                                                            But I also agree with everyone else on here: Everything is already a step up. I actually had lots of sex ed lessons (some in 4th, some in 6th, some in 8th grade), but they were very biologically focused. Like what happens in puberty, what happens with hormones then and during pregnancy, the whole biological basics of pregnancy and last but not least how to prevent them aka contraceptives. But everything about the social aspects of relationships I know, I know through Youtube and one good relationship-focused TV Talk Show. And even socio-biological aspects I know only because of what I study. We never even talked about consent in school, so of course not about anything else that's also about relationships and not just about sex-related biological processes.

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I feel asexuality and aromantism should absolutely be part of the lessons. It will help ace/aro/a-spec children know that their isn't something wrong with them, that it's ok to feel the way they do about sex and/ or romance. This would also help prevent people from growing up to be aphobic from lack of proper education.

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