Sex Ed for All Students, Not Just Straight Ones

Sex education can be a very controversial topic and adding LGBT to the mix makes this seem even more political, however sexual education is more than just politics. As years go by more and more students are coming forward with concerns about their sexuality and gender. This influx in questioning/LGBT students should tell the american education system that changes need to be made to accommodate these students needs. This topic can seem like it wouldn't apply to a large majority of the students, but in reality students everywhere are trying to discover themselves. The lack of representation of LGBT issues in sex ed classes might lead a student to believe that the risk is not there, as is the case with a large number of same sex female couples in the high school setting. Sex between LGBT students has the same amount of health risks that heterosexual sex has, and the safest option, with the growing numbers of LGBT students, would be to stop the spread of misinformation by educating students about all types of sexual encounters. Providing this education would help to prevent the spread of STDs and make the young student's journey to self discovery both safe and informed. In addition to this, students should also be taught about the different sex hormones and how they can affect a person's body. This information would not only be vital information for the community of young transgender students, but would also be necessary to any young woman looking to start on birth control. There are quite a few health risks associated with the use of hormones, and these risks, along with the benefits, need to be addressed so that a student can make an educated decision about what is right for them. As students grow up they are bombarded with new information, and this makes it harder to weed out the information that is untrue or misleading. Sex education classes help to throw that wrong information away and bring the good information to the front. Ignoring LGBT students' issues would be disregarding an entire part of the population that is only getting bigger as time goes by. This time in a student's life is critical in their development, and I, along with many other LGBT students, want and need support from our education system. Just simply meantioning these issues, along with the regular curriculum, can improve many students experiences in their sexual education classes and make the course overrall more inclusive.