Advocates: Lack of sex ed mandate in CT schools affects LGBTQ students
Connecticut is among 11 states nationwide that do not require sex education in public schools, and instead offers guidelines for local districts and teachers to navigate on their own.
The result is a patchwork of inconsistent and sometimes incomplete lessons that advocates say impact LGBTQ students the most.
Jay Potter said he had some sex education classes while attending Killingly High School from 2004 to 2008, but he said few of the lessons applied to him.
“The environment in the school at that point in time was pretty hostile,” Potter said. “So the sex education I received was not really applicable to me.”
For LGBTQ students like Potter, sex education classes focusing on heterosexual relations between people whose gender identity aligns with their birth sex can be confusing and isolating, advocates and LGBTQ people say.
The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States conducts surveys every few years on how sex is being taught in schools.
Connecticut did not participate in the 2018 survey, but data from 2016 shows that 18.6 percent of the state's secondary schools taught students all 19 of SIECUS's critical sexual health education topics in a required course in any of grades six, seven or eight.
These numbers may have improved due to recent state-level changes. Prior to an update in 2022, the last time the Connecticut health education curriculum framework was updated was 2006. It lacked terminology and concepts related to LGBTQ students. The new framework outlines a health and sexuality education for all races, genders, sexualities and backgrounds, according to John Frassinelli, division director at the state Department of Education.
However, schools are not required to teach that information.
“When there's limited resources, COVID-19 hits and there's less teachers, less time and they don't know how they are going to teach the classes? The first thing on the cutting board will absolutely be sex education,” said Brittany McBride, associate director of sex education and training at Advocates for Youth, a nationwide organization that promotes adolescent reproductive and sexual health programs and policies.
“When states require that sex education is taught, it ensures there's a sustainable access to those equitable, safe classrooms for our young people.”
Connecticut has one of the weakest sex education requirements in the nation, according to McBride. The state does not require human sexuality to be covered and it does not have to be medically accurate or inclusive.
Advocates for Youth research shows 39 states plus the District of Columbia mandate sex education and/or HIV education. Connecticut only requires instruction on human growth and development and disease prevention. Human growth and development refers to puberty education usually taught in the fourth or fifth grade.
The state Department of Education provides local school districts with guidelines for sex education called the “Healthy and Balanced Living Curriculum Framework.” Parents of students in districts that offer these topics can choose to opt out for their children.
“When states don't require sex ed, it doesn't mean that sex ed isn't being provided, it really just is up to the school districts to then make that priority,” McBride said.
While some districts may have a curriculum more robust than the state guidelines, some towns may have no curriculum at all. Frassinelli said the state does not track how many districts offer sex education beyond the required human growth and development section.
What districts are doing
In Windsor, while some teachers and education leaders are trying to develop a curriculum, sex education is not being offered to students right now.
“Kids should be able to have more information than what they can find online,” said Ericka Fangiullo, dean of students in Windsor and the former director of health and physical education.
During her time at West Haven High School, Farah Bejdadi said resources at the school were limited. They had a health class offered in tandem with gym, but sex education was not included.
“There were a few years during my high school career where we didn't have a teacher,” said Bejdadi, who graduated in 2021. “A lot of kids didn't need to take it because there was no option for them to.”
Glastonbury Public Schools has a health curriculum that begins addressing topics related to human development and puberty in the kindergarten through grade five segment of the lesson.
Topics related to puberty are discussed in “separate learning environments” for male and female students. Noah Goodwin, who graduated from Glastonbury High School in 2021, said the sex education he received was not comprehensive.
“They made it very specific to the [cisgender-heterosexual] audience,” Goodwin said. “And they touched on LGBT relationships, just a little bit. And they didn't really get indepth about anything like for trans kids, or safe sex practices for queer relationships.”
The practice of separating students by gender for puberty education should end, according to professor Martha Goldstein-Schultz, who is teaching future teachers at Eastern Connecticut State University about how to be effective health educators.
“The traditional approach to puberty ed is that we separate by gender,” Goldstein-Schultz said. “We need to shift away from that, because not only does it reinforce the binary, it leaves out that whole dialogue that's really valuable about how people, how bodies change, and the different pathways that folks take with this.”
At the state level, Chief Academic Officer Irene Parisi said the best practice for teaching puberty is to do so in large groups for students of all gender identities.
Goldstein-Schultz provides workshops to schools and educators across Connecticut as part of her consulting business, Sexuality Consulting LLC.
Goldstein-Schultz and Potter, who is a former student of hers, are trying to sway the dialogue toward skills-based sex education across the state.
“When they're with a partner, and they have to communicate to have safe sex, we certainly teach consent as part of the conversation and the skills to be able to advocate for yourself,” GoldsteinSchultz said. “And so if that's not being taught, it's clear that students are not empowered with those with that skill set and the knowledge that comes from sex ed.”
Potter said arming students with this knowledge could even help prevent abuse or allow students to report abuse more effectively.
“When a student comes into school saying, ‘Daddy touched my cookie,' well, what does cookie mean to a teacher?” Potter said. “It doesn't mean anything, right? And so if these kids don't have the words across their development, to protect themselves and to advocate for themselves, we're really just enabling, we're opening the door to things like abuse.”
Diverging from both the state framework and Goldstein-Schultz's recommendation, New Haven Public Schools teach a health curriculum based on the Michigan Model for Health, according to a spokesperson for the district.
The Michigan Model for Health teaches abstinence or abstinence-based curriculum at the high school level with discussion about condoms. As of 2014, 76 percent of schools in the U.S. taught that abstinence is the most effective method to avoid pregnancy, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Potter said this is not an effective approach since not all intimate relationships involve pregnancy risk.
“What are the things that every human being experiences at some point in time? Sexuality and intimacy,” Potter said. “It's a universal fact of life that is biologically motivated. If we can't have conversations about biology and desire in a realistic-based way, you can't deny it.”
In 2016, SIECUS reported that 95.5 percent of Connecticut secondary schools taught students about the benefits of sexual abstinence in a required course in any of grades 9, 10, 11 or 12.
In Hamden, the district bases its curriculum on the state-recommended framework.
In Bridgeport, the district works with the local health department to develop a health curriculum. Neither the district or the health department responded to requests for comment.
In 2021, Connecticut lawmakers tried to formally include LGBTQ concepts in sex education via House Bill 5510. Some local advocates think this is a good start.
Sex education coursework that is focused on heterosexual intercourse can give LGBTQ students the perception that sex is only defined by penetration, advocates say.
“You can obviously still contract an STI, an STD and not having this awareness and this insight and not making these other students feel included and supported for whatever they do sexually is very troubling,” Bejdadi said. “We need to move past those traditional values.”
Resistance to sex education
Some Connecticut school districts and teachers declined to comment when contacted by Hearst Connecticut Media about how sex is being taught in local classrooms. Some cited the “contentious” nature of sex education in schools.
A new bill in Florida bans public schools from holding conversations about sexual orientation and several other states have considered similar measures.
Woodstock Middle School is one Connecticut public school that has established a skills-based sex education curriculum.
“In addition to constantly having to advocate for health education as one of the most crucial courses in which students can participate, health educators now have to defend our lifesaving and affirming service to youth against the sharpened inaccurate swords of fear conglomerates,” Michelle Rawcliffe, a health educator at Woodstock Middle School, wrote in a blog post.
Potter and GoldsteinSchultz are no strangers to risks associated with providing sex education.
“[Goldstein-Schultz] was a fierce advocate at a time when it was dangerous for her career to be as open and supportive as she was,” Potter said.
For parents who feel they can adequately educate their kids in sex education, Potter said there's a chance that's true. But he emphasized that sex education is for all children, and not every student has a parent who will provide them with the information they need.
“The reality is that the public school system is in place to provide that education for every student, right?” said Potter, who is now a foster parent. “Not just the students that have parents or adults in their lives that are able to be there and protect them. Because the reality is that I see parents that hurt their children. I see it every day. And I assure you that those parents are not educating their kids and aren't keeping them safe.”
Parents may have fears about their kids as young as in kindergarten learning about sex. But the state and skills-based curriculum that advocates are pushing for do not address topics related to pregnancy prevention or sexual intercourse until much later.
“We're talking about stomach, eyes, ears and nose,” Frassinelli said. “Those are the body parts we are talking about in pre-K to (second grade).”
However, by grade 12, students should be able to, “describe situations in which someone might choose to abstain from sexual activity after already engaging in the behavior, and assess the barriers that might be encountered in implementing this decision.”
Why it matters
Talking about sex in school, particularly for the LGBTQ community, could be life-saving, advocates say.
Statistics on the Trevor Project website reveal that LGBTQ youth are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide than their peers.
“They're at a higher risk for all of these negative health outcomes,” McBride said. “There's less protection for them. And by not providing our students with equitable access to safe-learning environments, they're also not getting a complete education, which is a complete failure on the system of the school system itself.”
Research from GLSEN shows that only 4 percent of LGBTQ students were taught “positive information” about LGBTQ people or issues in their health classes. In 2016, SIECUS reported that just over half of Connecticut secondary schools provided students with curricula or supplementary materials that included HIV, STD or pregnancy prevention information relevant to LGBTQ youth.
“LGBTQ youth need and deserve to learn in settings that are inclusive of their experiences and that give them the education necessary to stay safe and healthy,” GLSEN Executive Director Melanie Willingham-Jaggers said.
However, some students have graduated from Connecticut schools without finding it.
Goodwin, who recently completed his freshman year at the University of Maine, said he feels more comfortable and accepted for who he is since leaving high school.
“I am in the prism housing, which is a LGBTQ accepting housing, where anybody can room with anybody,” Goodwin said. “And they have genderinclusive bathrooms and a bunch of support.”
If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 (En Español: 888-628-9454; Deaf and Hard of Hearing: 800-799-4889) or the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741. You can contact the Trevor Project online.