Lebanon Hosting First LGBT Sexual Health Week
The Lebanese Medical Association for Sexual Health (LebMASH) is planning a health week in Lebanon, during which they will focus on how the marginalization of the LGBTI community affects mental health. Although Lebanon is one the most progressive countries in the Middle East regarding LGBT issues, it is still taboo, though the country came one step closer to decriminalizing homosexuality this past January, when a judge ruled that, “homosexuality is a personal choice, not a punishable offense.”
School District Pulls ‘Jacob’s New Dress’ from Curriculum
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district in North Carolina had planned to use Jacob’s New Dress as part of an anti-bullying curriculum for first graders. A picture book about a boy who wears a dress to school one day, its inclusion in the curriculum has led to complaints from both teachers and state lawmakers, forcing them to pull the book from the curriculum. The authors of the book— Sarah and Ian Hoffman—have since felt compelled to clarify that reading a book can’t “turn someone gay.”
Teens Continue To Be Underwhelmed By High School Sex Ed
A recent study shows that high school graduates in the Maritime provinces of eastern Canada are underwhelmed by the sex education they got while in public school. The study, called “Emerging Adults’ Experiences of Middle and High School Health Education,” was compiled via a survey of close to 300 first year university students in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Ontario.
Student at Oklahoma High School Takes To Facebook To Protest Sex Ed Class
A senior at Jenks High School in Oklahoma was so disgusted by a sex ed class she attended that she took to Facebook to complain. “How dare our school allow a statement so demeaning to girls and so belittling of broken families to be presented to a class of such impressionable and already insecure seniors,” she writes in describing just one small snippet of the presentation. The school had hired an outside instructor to teach the class, one who uses the Bible’s teachings of abstinence as the centerpiece of her curriculum. Since the student’s Facebook post, however, parents have pushed back, and the instructor will not be invited back.
