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People with intellectual and developmental disabilities have the right to access appropriate and comprehensive sexuality and relationship education (SRE), but face a long history of exclusion from SRE in the USA due to myths about the sexuality of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, biases against people with disabilities, and segregationist educational policies. Additionally, people with autism/autistic people are more likely to report having an LGBTQIA+ identity, and need comprehensive SRE content to become socially competent members of their communities. Teachers and other practitioners are often placed in the uncomfortable position of addressing many SRE topics while feeling unprepared, trying to stay aligned with educational policies, managing caregiver expectations, and providing scientifically accurate fact-based information in an increasingly politicised social climate. This paper provides recommendations on how to teach about LGBTQIA+ issues to students with intellectual and developmental disabilities including recommendations for modifying existing SRE curricula, identifying effective instructional strategies, and outlining a process for including LGBTQIA+ identities in SRE content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sex and sexuality curricula in the USA should acknowledge the structural conditions racialised young people navigate to make sense of their sexual experiences and more explicitly recognise the political power of gender and sexuality. This paper suggests educators use women of colour feminism and decolonial studies to offer a historicised approach to understanding and engaging with gender and sexuality. Such an approach acknowledges how European colonisation has constructed white middle-class masculinity, femininity and heterosexuality as normative and pathologises other forms of gender and sexuality expression. It encourages educators to address state investment in colonial hierarchies by foregrounding how national legislation and associated discourses support the institutionalised pathologisation of racialised sexuality. Using a feminist of colour and decolonial approach, the article examines how US national policy further disciplines racialised sexuality by employing discourses of 'anchor babies' to justify the passing of new laws. It draws on the author's experience as an educator of colour to show how historicising gender and sexuality can teach racialised students there is nothing pathological about their sexuality. A transformed sex and sexuality curriculum is proposed to teach students about the political power they wield, and what critical understanding and action they can achieve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the use of withdrawal as a harm reduction approach to adolescent pregnancy prevention and its association with condom use. Data come from a baseline survey of a randomised controlled trial to test the effectiveness of FLASH, a sexual health education curriculum. Study participants completed electronic self-report surveys in health classes in their first or second year of high school (age range 14.1–17.9, mean 15.3 years). One-hundred and ninety-one students (12% of full sample) reported engaging in vaginal intercourse in the 3 months prior to the survey; of these, 66.0% reported using withdrawal as a birth control method, without significant differences by race, gender, region or birth control beliefs. Withdrawal was often used in combination with condoms (55.5%), periodic abstinence (40.0%) and birth control pills (13.4%). The effectiveness of withdrawal and its prevalence suggest an opportunity to reflect on how withdrawal is taught – moving from avoiding its use to a harm reduction approach to help sexually active youth avoid risk, reduce risk and reduce potential harm associated with sexual behaviours. Rather than focusing on withdrawal as risky, youth-serving professionals should acknowledge young people's efforts to prevent pregnancy and recognise the social and relational contexts of contraceptive choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classrooms reflect and contribute to normative sex, gender and sexuality categories in school culture, rules and rituals. Texts, materials, curriculum and the discourse we employ as educators perpetuate the pervasiveness of these categories. This paper explores some of the less visible ways in which sex and gender categories are constructed in US English Language Arts (ELA) classrooms, and how institutionalised heteronormativity positions students within normative categories of sex, gender and sexuality. These limiting conversations are difficult to identify and even more difficult to challenge. But it is precisely this dynamic – the subconscious reinforcing of sex and gender binaries – that upholds the dominance of the institution of heterosexuality. Merely addressing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) issues in the field of teaching reading, writing and literacy is an incomplete strategy. To disrupt normative narratives in the ELA classroom, educators must first identify the everyday practices occurring in school spaces, specifically recognising the teacher as a text. For sustained challenges to institutionalised norms, ELA teachers must engage in this work outside of LGBTQ-inclusive instructional materials and anti-homophobic education, and this paper offers specific methods for disrupting mainstream narratives in ELA classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study explored the experiences of counselling students engaged in an online sexuality course to better understand how to prepare multiculturally competent future clinicians. A phenomenological approach was adopted which reports on findings from 5 student participants enrolled in an online class. Data for the study were collected through course dairy entries in course modules and follow-up face-to-face semi-structured interviews with all participants. Four themes were identified to reflect how the researchers interpreted student's experiences of the course. These were: the importance of early life experiences; the significance of pre-course later life influences; experiences of the course; and timing. Each of these themes carried implications for the future provision of the sexuality education and training provided as part of counsellor education programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this exploratory study, students at a US university were asked about their motivations for enrolling or not enrolling in a human sexuality course. Questionnaires were given to 617 undergraduate students enrolled in a human sexuality course and to 169 final-year students who had not taken the course. The top five reasons students gave for enrolling were: (1) it seemed more interesting than other courses; (2) friends recommended it; (3) it met an academic requirement; (4) easy 'A'; and (5) other courses were full. The first reason for enrolling specific to desiring knowledge of sexuality was ranked sixth. Although the sexuality course has never limited enrolment, only a small percentage of undergraduates choose to take the course. The top five reasons that graduating seniors had not enrolled were: (1) could not work it into their schedule; (2) not interested; (3) not aware of the course; (4) already knew enough about sexuality; and (5) it did not fill a requirement. When some incongruent responses were eliminated, the primary reason for not enrolling was 'not interested.' The results indicate that sex educators should not assume that most college students want classroom-taught sexuality education. Suggestions are provided that may help increase interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sex education made available to transgender youth has rarely been studied empirically. In this study, we sought to explore the sex education experiences of transgender young people and summarise their recommendations for transgender-inclusive curricula. Qualitative data from 14 transgender youth in the upper-Midwest USA were collected by means of an online questionnaire and group interview. Data was analysed using a consensual qualitative approach. Three themes emerged: (1) sources and reactions to sex education, (2) the importance of trust, and (3) missing information and recommendations. Sources and reactions to sex education included sexual health information sources and the strategies participants employed to supplement the sex education they received. Trust included trustworthy information sources and strong qualities of sexual health resources. Missing information and recommendations included unmet sex education needs, including the scope of information and from whom the information is delivered. Findings suggest that important curricular considerations include the diversity of content, but also the diversity of voices delivering it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many controversies surround sex education in the United States. One particular issue of contention is whether comprehensive sexuality education increases frequency of sexual intercourse among program participants. The current investigation examined frequency of vaginal sexual intercourse in a sample of 522 sexually experienced African-American adolescent females between the ages of 14 and 18 (mean = 16.0 years, standard deviation = 1.22). Participants were a part of a randomized, controlled trial evaluating the efficacy of a comprehensive sexuality education intervention. Data collection occurred at baseline and at 6-month and 12-month follow-up. Participants were recruited from four community health agencies in the Birmingham, Alabama area. Results indicate no significant differences in the frequency of sex between the HIV intervention group and the general health-promotion comparison group at any time point: baseline to 6-month assessment, 6-month to 12-month assessment, or over the entire 12-month follow-up period. These findings reiterate the value of hierarchical messages in sex education curricula that inform adolescents that abstinence is the most effective way to prevent sexually transmitted disease infection, while encouraging adolescents who choose to have sex to use condoms correctly and consistently, and teaching them the skills to do so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]