Should sex education be taught in schools?

Sex education creates a more inclusive environment

Question: Should sex education be taught in schools?
Position‹2 of 2: Yes, sex education should be taught in schools
Argument‹2 of 7›: Sex education creates a more inclusive environment

A comprehensive sex education program that includes LGBTQ+ relationships helps make schools more inclusive.

The argument

GLSEN’s National School Climate Survey revealed that 63% of LGBTQ+ students feel unsafe in the school setting. However, in schools where LGBTQ+ relationships were included as part of the sexual education instruction, less than half of LGBTQ+ students felt unsafe at school. Teaching teens about LGBTQ+ relationships can make schools more inclusive by removing some of the negative stigma associated with homosexuality, transgenderism and lesbianism. For this reason, a comprehensive sexual education program should be taught in schools. This also extends beyond the LGBTQ+ community. Schools that teach a comprehensive sex education program, including same-sex relationships and consent, have lower suicide rates, lower rates of depression, lower rates of sexual assault and reduced anxiety among students.

Context

In schools where LGBTQ+ matters were taught as part of the sexual education curriculum, Homosexual, lesbian and transgender students feel safer at school and more broadly students attending the school report feeling safer.

Premises

[P1]A GLSEN survey found 63% of LGBTQ+ students feel unsafe at school, but in schools that include LGBTQ+ relationships in sex education, fewer than half do. [P2] Teaching about LGBTQ+ relationships removes negative stigma and makes schools more inclusive. [P3] Comprehensive sex education including consent also lowers suicide, depression, sexual assault, and anxiety among all students. [C] Therefore, because sex education creates a more inclusive environment, it should be taught in schools.

Counter-arguments

Opponents argue the survey findings are correlational: schools that adopt LGBTQ+-inclusive curricula may already be more accepting for other reasons, so the lower rate of students feeling unsafe cannot be attributed to the curriculum itself. The same confounding applies to the cited links with suicide, assault and depression, which compare very different schools and populations. They add a separate objection that curriculum content — especially on sexuality — is properly a matter for parents and communities, and that a worthy aim like inclusivity does not by itself settle what belongs in a school syllabus or at what age. Establishing a benefit is not the same as establishing that schools are the right venue.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The 63%-versus-under-half comparison is correlational; schools that adopt inclusive curricula may already be more accepting, so the causal claim is unproven. [Rejecting P3] The associations with lower suicide, assault and depression span differing schools and populations and are vulnerable to confounding, so they are not demonstrated effects of the curriculum alone.