LGBTQ+ Youth Health Education Needs to Change & What You Can Do to Help
By: Asher Allen
The first place many students in the United States receive sex education is at their High School. With the majority of students attending public schools, health education is often funded by the government, making the standards dependent on the state or county a school resides in. Sex and health education curriculums often assume students are heterosexual and cisgender, leaving LGBTQ+ youth uninformed about basic anatomy, healthy relationship skills, and safer sex practices. The curriculum frequently does not mention sexual orientation or gender identity in more conservative areas, and those that do, discuss it in a more negative light.
Preventing LGBTQ+ youth from learning the information and skills they need to stay healthy contributes to a climate of exclusion within schools — a place LGBTQ+ youth are often targets of bullying and discrimination. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows how only 19% of U.S. secondary schools implement LGBTQ+ inclusive health education. When LGBTQ+ students were asked directly, only 5% felt that the sexual education they received met their exact needs and that they learned about their health with positive representation. This leaves LGBTQ+ youth without the skills to maintain healthy relationships and protect themselves if they are engaging in sexual activity, which brings us to a clear call to action.
Evidence from Youth for America below shows how detailed and comprehensive health education for LGBTQ+ youth helps promote safer sex practices, prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. In the digital age, youth often use the internet to find health information that is not taught in class. Youth for America’s survey data illustrates increasing rates of online health-information seeking behavior. Searching for health information across the internet easily leads to retaining misinformation. Rather than leaving youth to seek health information online, providing accurate and concrete education within the classroom helps combat this problem.
Integrating health education that directly meets LGBTQ+ youths’ needs will help combat the negative sexual health outcomes that affect them. While this disproportionality has improved, cisgender men who have sex with cisgender men still account for more than 2/3 of HIV infections among people aged 13–29. Data from Youth for America further highlights that women in high school who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual are much more likely to contract an STI than their heterosexual counterparts. They are more likely to have experienced coerced sexual contact, and both LGBTQ+ young men and women are at a much higher risk of experiencing dating violence and sexual assault. As for transgender youth, HIV rates are more than four times the national average, and transgender women of color are even more affected. Transgender and gender-nonconforming youth also experience high rates of sexual violence, particularly transgender and gender non-conforming youth of color. GLSEN’s 2019 National Survey highlights parents, youth, and health professionals in great support of LGBTQ+ inclusive sexual education to combat the clear health disparities. Through GLSEN’s Advocates for Youth and a slew of LGBTQ+ advocacy, a larger call to advocates and government policymakers has started the larger conversation to fund and require LGBTQ+ inclusive sexual education across the nation.
Here, at The PRIDE Study, we have made strides to tackle the health disparities amongst sexual and gender minority youths by including myself, a local high school senior, to be a part of the Affiliated Research Team earlier last Summer. As a public high school student, I have had little access to health education for LGBTQ+ youth. I experienced a clear gap within my public-school health education. I was a closeted gay man, when I received my school’s health education. In turn, not being allowed to learn about my true needs perpetuated my ongoing idea of who I am “isn’t important enough” — for if it was, I felt that it would have been taught. From this experience, I began to research ways that improvements could be made. I discovered there was a lack of research to even be able to create a curriculum that met all LGBTQ+ students’ exact needs. While I feel this lack of specificity in my school’s health education was not by means of targeted exclusion, I also concluded it was largely due to the lack of integration of relevant research into youth education.
This said, providing more in-depth and adequate health and sex education for our LGBTQ+ youth will improve their health and well-being — making the classroom a safer place to learn for all.
Here is what you can do now to make change within your community:
- Becoming advocates for LGBTQ+ inclusive health education
a. Seek reliable organizations to share on social media, friends, or family
2. Help strengthen or even implement LGBTQ+ needs within health education at schools and community organizations in your area
a.Check out these links from GLSEN as an amazing resource:
b.https://www.glsen.org/activity/inclusive-curriculum-guide
c. https://www.glsen.org/sexed
3. Ensure that school is a safe and accepting space for LGBTQ+ students
a. Reach out to students you might know at schools in your area, school administrators, and student organizations/clubs!
b. Don’t be afraid to talk with your own children about sex and sexuality
Sources:
- 2019 GLSEN National School Climate Survey
- https://www.glsen.org/sites/default/files/2021-04/NSCS19-FullReport-032421-Web_0.pdf
- Found that small percentages of LGBTQ+ high school youths received LGBTQ+ inclusive sex education or positive LGBTQ+ representation within school curriculum
- 2017 “Responding to “CrossPollinating Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy and Universal Design for Learning: Toward an Inclusive Pedagogy That Accounts for Dis/Ability” article.
- Harvard Educational Review
- 2017 “Strategic Coalitions Against Exclusion at the Intersection of Race and Disability — A Rejoinder.” article
- Harvard Educational Review
- Data from the 2017 GLSEN National School Climate Survey shows certain trends similar to those in 2019, but more specific:
- https://www.glsen.org/sites/default/files/2020-06/Inclusive-Curriculum-Helps-LGBTQ-Youth-GLSEN-Inforgraphic-Poster_0.pdf
- GLSEN 2015 “Get the Facts” resource highlights specific marginalizations of LGBTQ+ students and how more in-depth health education can make a positive impact on them:
- https://www.glsen.org/sites/default/files/GLSEN%20Get%20the%20Facts.pdf
