news roundup

It's been a terrifying time for reproductive rights. Over the past few months, politicians across the country have proposed, debated and, in some cases, passed bills restricting access to abortion. And several states, such as Texas and South Carolina, have managed to pass near-total bans. And now, with the Supreme Court agreeing to hear a case on Mississippi’s 15-week … [Read more...] about Full Disclosure: Sex Ed in the News | May 2021

I feel like such a bummer whenever I write in this space. Last month, it was the news around the abduction and killing of Sarah Everard, and the mass shooting in Atlanta, Georgia, that had me enraged. This month, I watched with jaw dropped as the number of anti-trans bills built from a trickle to an overwhelming cascade. And then, last week, Derek Chauvin was found guilty of … [Read more...] about Full Disclosure: Sex Ed in the News | April 2021

I don't know what to write in this space right now. On March 3, Sarah Everard was kidnapped and murdered in South London, an act that was eventually attributed to a police officer. On March 16, eight people were killed in Atlanta, Georgia, in what was a clearly a racially- and sexually-motivated mass shooting. I could expand on the stories here, but you already know them. … [Read more...] about Full Disclosure: Sex Ed in the News | March 2021

It's been such a weird (infuriating?) month for sex-related news. Gwyneth Paltrow deciding to sell vibrators, claiming that hers is one you won't have to be ashamed of (because apparently sex toys are embarrassing?). Georgia considering a bill that would mandate that doctors examine students' "reproductive organs" in an effort to exclude trans girls from participating in school … [Read more...] about Full Disclosure: Sex Ed in the News | Feb. 2021

Welp. We survived the first month of 2021. Hooray? Unfortunately, it didn't go as smoothly as many of us had hoped, as our outgoing president encouraged white supremacists to attempt an overthrow of the government. To be quite honest, I was nervous as hell on Inauguration Day, holding my breath in the expectation of further outbreaks of violence and hate. Still, some things … [Read more...] about Full Disclosure: Sex Ed in the News | Jan. 2021

As I write this, people across the world are preparing to say sayonara to 2020, many of them deliriously excited and relieved, thinking of the past year as a literal dumpster fire they can watch burn down to so much ash and blow away on the cold winter breeze. Reset: 2021. Am I right? But many others of us know — or are just beginning to comprehend — that the events of 2020 … [Read more...] about Full Disclosure: Sex Ed in the News | Dec. 2020

These past few years have seen educators on edge even more so than usual. Despite research showing that abstinence-only until marriage programs do not, in fact, cut down on incidences of STIs and unplanned pregnancies, federal funding had started to flow more readily to those programs during the Trump administration. Meanwhile, organizations offering comprehensive sex education … [Read more...] about Full Disclosure: Sex Ed in the News | Nov. 2020

As I write this, it's just two days after the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court and, I won't lie, it feels like a gut punch. Barrett has such a troubling history. She served for nearly three years on the board of a group of private Christian schools that barred admission to children of same-sex parents and that "made it plain that openly gay and lesbian … [Read more...] about Full Disclosure: Sex Ed in the News | Oct. 2020

Back in the day, when I was doing volunteer work for the Center for Sex Ed, I put together weekly news roundups for their blog. And while there was sometimes good news — a piece of progressive legislation pushed through, at long last — more often, it was rage-inducing. Stories of rights being stripped away. Stories of sex ed curricula being made even more restrictive. Stories … [Read more...] about Full Disclosure: Sex Ed in the News | Sept. 2020