California Parents Concerned That Sex Ed Class May Have Educated Their Kids About Sex

Some parents at California’s Acalanes High School are very upset that the district’s sex ed curriculum is doing the unthinkable: actually educating students about sex.

According to Fox News, the 13- and 14-year-olds in the ninth grade were recently subjected to a sex education class that didn’t involve just sitting them down and yelling at them, “Don’t have sex, because you WILL get pregnant and die!” à la Mean Girls. Instead, the class went over topics with the kids like consent, readiness for sex, and gender identity, which according to the geniuses over at the WorldNetDaily comments section means the instructors are sex offenders and should be sent to prison.

Along with a pair of sex ed handouts that included an “am I ready to have sex?” questionnaire and a list of phrases used for content, one of the things causing controversy is a diagram explaining the multiple facets of gender identity and sexual orientation. Here’s an updated, slightly more complex version of that sheet, so get ready to clutch your pearls (or whatever else is handy):

genderbread person(via)

Androgyny! Bisexuality! Intersex people! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!! Kids might realize that all of these groups exist – and that it’s okay to be one! What is the world coming to?!

If I was a parent at Acalanes, I’d be incredibly relieved that my kid was hearing about the importance of consent and the existence/acceptance of marginalized gender identities and orientations at school as well as from me at home. But people are in a moral panic over the sex ed class (not to mention that the instructors of the class are Planned Parenthood employees), so much so that they’ve enlisted a legal non-profit called the Pacific Justice Institute to help them wage their anti-sex-ed, pro-sex-ignorance agenda. And the PJI definitely doesn’t have their own agenda, as you can see from this quote from its president, Brad Dacus:

”Planned Parenthood is not exactly the best when it comes to putting young people first. They get more grants from the promiscuity of children […] The material they have provided was material that mirrored their agenda.”

Mm-hmm, gotta keep all that lucrative promiscuous-kid cash rolling in! And yes, what a truly terrible agenda: making sure young people have the tools to recognize that they’re ready to have sex, making them able to recognize how to get and give and withdraw consent, and enlightening them about gender identity. Scandalous!

Parents are claiming that the course encourages kids to go out and have sex, because nothing says ‘jump on that dick!!’ like a checklist that has students ask themselves whether “I can handle a possible infection or pregnancy.” 13- and 14-year-olds, parents are arguing, shouldn’t be hearing about sex, to which I say: have you ever met a ninth grader? Ninth grade is the right time to address these issues, because it’ll catch most kids before they’ve become sexually active, and because it’s also an age where for the most part they’re mature enough to have a discussion without dissolving into “hurr hurr, you said penis” giggles.

The Pacific Justice Institute is trying to claim that the sex ed program is in violation of a federal statue that bans ‘surveys, evaluations, and analysis’ from being undertaken without parental consent, but that regulation is directed toward the collection of student data. I’m not sure how a handing out a self-conducted checklist of question to ask oneself before having sex could possibly violate that rule. But I suppose when the horrifying prospect that your kids could develop ideas of sexuality that don’t date to the Paleolithic is on the line, parents might be willing to try anything to see what’ll stick. If this sex ed program does get booted from Acalanes, is there any chance it can come to my local high schools instead?

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