Equitable Access to Sex Education for Everyone Across the Whole Spectrum of Humans is a Necessity.
A Core Boundary for Youth Sexual Health Education
These core boundaries create a foundation for youth sexual health education that is inclusive, accessible, anti-oppressive, and rooted in pleasure and joy. These core boundaries are imperative to the overall framing of this report and are the bedrock from which liberation and transformation of sexual health education is possible.
The Board identified several equity considerations that were important to include in the overall framing of the report. Context matters and culture impacts our access to information, knowledge, and relationships. The Board set expectations for all its conversations. One truth that was prioritized was the reality that we live on stolen, indigenous land and this truth directly ties to our work when thinking about the statistics related to sexual violence against indigenous women, two-spirit, and transwomen. The Board agreed to center and honor this in all conversations.
Additionally, the Board prioritized accessibility and inclusion for all. This requires awareness and mindfulness around the ways in which accessibility and inclusion are not currently happening within sexual education. For example, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) does not apply to churches. When offering sexual health trainings in non-school spaces, it is important to know that ADA does not apply to churches and thus trainings will likely not be accessible to people with disabilities. Free space does not translate to being accessible for all.
In terms of accessibility, the Board prioritized access for students with disabilities. Too often students with disabilities are pulled from sexual health classes and never receive any education. There is a spectrum of intellectual and developmental disabilities and schools must be prepared to offer sexual health education in a variety of formats to meet diverse needs. For example, audio descriptions and curriculum adaptations specific for students with disabilities can be solutions. It is critical to ensure that recommendations address the whole spectrum of humans that exist.
Curves
by an anonymous artist from Inside Out Youth Services
“This piece depicts the experience of having a disability and its relationship with my sexuality. In my life I am missing a lot of personal autonomy despite reaching adulthood. I feel like I am perpetually in a space between tight ribbons and tangled lines. Although not always deliberately, individuals around me don’t perceive me beyond having a disability and as a result respond poorly when I behave my age per say. Specifically when it comes to my sexuality I find that it returns the personal autonomy the world took from me. This piece depicts the feeling of individual freedom in granted in my sexuality.”
These core boundaries ensure that we keep in alignment with our mission to dismantle oppression within the sexual health field and serve as a guiding tool when forming partnerships, engaging in program development, action planning, curriculum selection and implementation, policy development, resource referral, and other actions.
Moving Forward Through Liberating Practices
With these core boundaries as our foundation for transformation and reimagining, the liberating practices that recurred throughout the anti-oppressive recommendations and action steps provide partners that are working in the youth sexual health field with strategies for how to equitably engage in their work as advocates and accomplices to young people.