TX State Board of Ed gets an "F"

The Texas GSA Network condemns the Texas State Board of Education's endangering of Texas students through their decision to exclude lessons on consent and material relevant to LGBTQ+ youth in updates to the sexual health education curricula requirements.

AUSTIN, TX - Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer students throughout Texas have equal rights to education as their straight and cisgender peers. LGBTQ+ students deserve curricula in all areas, including sex education, that reflects their lives and experiences. Out Youth's Texas Gender & Sexuality Alliance Network denounces the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) for their failure to lead our state and update the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) to provide realistic, age-appropriate, comprehensive, and inclusive sex education.

Students, parents, educators, and community members consistently showed their support for LGBTQ+ youth in the state. They spent countless hours sharing their Texas sex ed horror stories, and experiences of bullying and harassment based on sexual orientation or gender identity with these SBOE members. Despite testimony from hundreds of Texans over the past year, and polls showing that "75% of Texans support abstinence-plus sex ed, including all major demographic, regional and political groups," nine of the ten Republicans on the SBOE voted not to include the language that "everyone deserves to be treated with respect, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity" in the updates to the TEKS.

As noted by the Stories and Numbers Collaborative Safe Schools Policy Brief released in June 2019, inclusive policies are the foundation upon which LGBTQ+ students can begin to have equal access to the education they deserve. The board's failure to include LGBTQ+ students in the long-overdue updates to the TEKS shows a remarkable lack of foresight and incredible callousness. These officials have foregone the opportunity to make LGBTQ+ students feel safer at school in favor of promoting their discriminatory agenda.

In October 2019 the Stories and Numbers Collaborative released a supplemental brief addressing comprehensive and inclusive sexuality education. The research showed that abstinence-only education fails to delay sexual activity or reduce risky sexual behaviors and that sexuality education that is inclusive of LGBTQ+ youth reduces behaviors that put all youth, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, at risk of HIV, including sex without a condom and sex under the influence of substances. Furthermore, comprehensive and inclusive sex education has been shown to increase the number of LGBTQ+ youth tested for HIV, increase sexual health knowledge and communication with partners, and reduce stress caused by stigma and prejudice towards LGBTQ+ youth.

The Texas GSA Network urges parents, students, educators, and community members to demand support and training for all school personnel on the needs and challenges of LGBTQ+ students, and insist Texas make LGBTQ+ resources and curricula available to all students. Holding elected officials accountable to every member of the communities they serve, regardless of their identity, is imperative for the safety and wellbeing of our youth.

Follow Texas GSA Network on Facebook and Instagram @txgsa and on Twitter @txgsan for more information and next steps.

The full Safe Schools Policy Brief can be downloaded at www.storiesandnumbers.org. For youth needing help starting a GSA or resources to make their GSA more sustainable, they should visit Out Youth's Texas GSA Network website www.txgsa.org. Additional poll results regarding statewide support for sex ed can be found at https://www.texasisready.org/.