US: LGBT Sex Education — Is the US inclusive?

Learning about the ‘birds and the bees’ is a natural part of growing up, and everyone learns the ins and outs a little differently. But, there is often a debate on what should be taught in schools and what should (and usually shouldn’t) be included in the curriculum. For much of the country, that means not including topics on same-sex relationships and same-sex intercourse. At Bespoke Surgical, we’re committed to providing advocacy and education to the LGBTQ+ community. Too often there aren’t any available resources for younger members of the community, or simply the wrong information is being taught.

With some of those issues in mind, we decided to conduct a survey to find out where and how people of different sexual identities and genders learned their information. Using an online survey, we asked over 1000 Americans of all ages a variety of questions on their sex ed experiences as well as what was taught.

Our Findings

One of the first statistics that stuck out to us was that 75% of people said their sex ed class didn’t discuss same-sex relationships or intercourse. Unfortunately, this isn’t as surprising when you consider that only 12 states require discussion of sexual identity.

When looking at the data by sexual identity, we found some of our most interesting results. Bisexual and homosexual respondents were nearly equal at 64% and 65% respectively on inclusion of same-sex topics. However, 79% of heterosexual respondents said their sex ed classes talked about those topics. This begs the question, do heterosexual people believe their sex ed classes were inclusive when in reality, they may have only had a cursory mention of same-sex relationships? To have such a stark difference in responses indicates that there may be more than meets the eye. Read more via Bespoke Surgical