Lattatu to tca aPitot Thanks for sex ed. report

I wanted to thank you for putting the “Lowell Representative Behind Sex Education Legislation” article in the paper recently. This is a topic I have also cared strongly about since I was in middle school. I’m a second-year college student now, but I wanted to comment on how important I know it is to have proper sexual education in every stage of your life, and how I also agree with this article when it talks about how people do not quite understand that sexual education is certainly more than simply sex.

For example, I have a hormonal disorder called polycystic ovary syndrome and it’s something I have struggled with since I was a child, but wasn’t aware of until my junior year of high school. Had I known that hormones were to blame for my dangerous weight gain, depression, acne, and so many other symptoms, perhaps I would have been able to do what was right for my body sooner. But unfortunately, I didn’t learn much about hormones at all until my high school health class and even then, it was not enough for me to realize that my body was working incorrectly.

PCOS is very common among women and also has a very simple explanation to it but it’s not very simple at all when you’re unsure how your own body works. Just because someone explains to you how puberty occurs does not mean that you understand all the functions of your body, and that is dangerous. It has to change.

I think it should also be said that teachers should have a different type of training in this case. Students need to be comfortable enough to ask questions in the classroom, and when you have a teacher who is so obviously uncomfortable teaching this subject, it discourages students from asking questions. This is not to tear down teachers. I understand how difficult it can be to talk to adolescents, but perhaps that means we need to work on changing the narrative. Our bodies should not be an uncomfortable topic. And it would be helpful for schools to reflect that in their teachings.

Thank you for including an article like this in the news and normalizing the current stigma that is our bodies.