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Creating Safe Space for GLBTQ Youth: A Toolkit

Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Education: Abandoning Responsibility to GLBTQ Youth*

When Congress passed the Personal Responsibility Act in 1996, it directed public funding to support abstinence-only-until-marriage education. Ostensibly aimed at preventing teen pregnancy and out-of-wedlock births, abstinence-only education serves to stigmatize homosexuality and GLBTQ people. At least $87 million in public funds have been spent in each year since 1997 on abstinence-only-until-marriage education. Five of the eight requirements of the abstinence-only provision have a particularly negative impact on GLBT people. Abstinence-only education funded through the Personal Responsibility Act:

• Teaches abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the expected standard for all school age children. Teaches that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems.
• Teaches that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity.
• Teaches that sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects.
• Teaches that bearing children out-of-wedlock is likely to have harmful consequences for the child, the child's parents, and society.[1]

Dangers to All Youth of Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Education

First, it is important to note the threats that abstinence-only-until-marriage education poses to young people in general. Research has shown that sex education that promotes the delay of first intercourse but simultaneously teaches safer sex practices is more effective than abstinence-only education. A World Health Organization review of sex education programs around the world documented the relative ineffectiveness of abstinence-only education in stemming the spread of sexually transmitted infections.[2] Since then, various reviews of evaluated programs have identified no effective abstinence-only-until-marriage programs; but they have identified many effective comprehensive programs.[3,4,5] A report released by U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher in early 2001 also questioned the effectiveness of abstinence-only education. Satcher noted that there has been little research to demonstrate the effectiveness of this particular type of instruction.[6] A recent review of evaluations of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs in 11 states found that none was effective.[7] Moreover, initial indicators are that the Act's abstinence-only provisions have had a chilling effect on the discussion of homosexuality and on sex education efforts aimed at stopping the spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and teen pregnancy.

Abstinence-only-until-marriage approaches to sex education are counter-productive, dangerous, and even harmful to youth. The approaches present premarital sex as intrinsically harmful. Relying on shame and fear, these approaches spread inaccurate information about STIs and contraceptives; present rarely occurring, worst-case scenarios as routine and common; stigmatize and evoke hostility toward people with AIDS; and largely ignore homosexuality, except as a context for HIV transmission. Some curricula are explicitly hostile toward lesbians and gay men.[8] Abstinence-only approaches present condoms as a dangerous and ineffective form of birth control, overstating condom failure rates and translating people's failure to use condoms or to use them properly as an intrinsic defect of condoms. Gender stereotypes about males and females are frequent—presenting boys as sex-crazed and girls as less interested in sex than in finding love. The curricula frequently blame feminism for promiscuity and warn girls about the way they dress. Children of single parents and unmarried straight and gay parents are the subjects of such stereotypes as, children of single parents "have lower grades and aspirations" and "are twice as likely to have behavior problems and seek psychiatric help."[8]

Particular Threats to GLBTQ Youth

Programs that focus on abstinence-only-until-marriage are detrimental to GLBTQ youth, those questioning their sexual orientation, the children of GLBT parents, and GLBT teachers and administrators in the nation's schools. Although these programs largely ignore homosexuality except as a context for HIV transmission, some programs implicitly and explicitly stigmatize homosexuality. For example:

• Sex Respect teaches that, "[R]esearch and common sense tell us the best ways to avoid AIDS are: Remain a virgin until marriage …Avoid homosexual behavior."[8] When homosexual sexual practices are noted, Sex Respect portrays them as "unnatural behavior."[8]
• As mandated by the Personal Responsibility Act, abstinence-only-until-marriage education teaches that marriage is the only appropriate context for sexual relations. WAIT Training explicitly seeks to "reframe the act of sexual intercourse as best and most appropriate between two committed married people who love each other."[8]
• FACTS presents homosexuality as beyond the realm of common sense: "it only makes sense that marriage is the only place for sexual activity to be enjoyed free from negative consequences."[8]
• Clue 2000 says: "Sexual love, also called conjugal love, is the love between a man and a woman in marriage." 14 Clue 2000 engages in the standard, right-wing tactic of conflating homosexuality with pedophilia and incest.[8]
• Facing Reality assures teachers and parents that presenting homosexuality as intrinsically dangerous is actually in the best interests of students and is not homophobic. It also repeats the outdated notion of AIDS as a gay disease:
  
  [M]any homosexual activists are frustrated and desperate over their own situation and those of loved ones. Many are dying, in part, due to ignorance. Educators who struggle to overcome ignorance and instill self-mastery in their students will inevitably lead them to recognize that some people with AIDS are now suffering because of the choices they made. …Teachers, in order to preserve an atmosphere of intellectual freedom, should feel confident that when examining health issues and moral implications of homosexual behaviors, they are not engaging in an assault on a particular person or group.[8]

The irony of the last sentence is particularly rich. Abstinence-only-until-marriage education is, by definition, an assault on intellectual freedom. It suppresses alternative points of view and supplants a method scientifically proven to be effective in decreasing the spread of STIs with another, unproven method. Yet this approach is constructed as "preserv[ing] an atmosphere of intellectual freedom."[8]

In contrast to abstinence-only programs, studies have shown that lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth who receive gay-sensitive HIV instruction in school tend to engage in risky sexual behavior less frequently than similar youth who do not receive such instruction. In a random sample of high school students in Massachusetts, among sexually active youth, gay youth reported more sexual partners, more frequent use of substances before engaging in sex, and higher rates of pregnancy than other youth. However, those gay youth that received gay-sensitive HIV instruction reported fewer sexual partners and less frequent substance use before sex compared to other gay youth.[9] The authors of this study assert that the increased risky sexual behavior among gay youth "tends to be a shifting of sexual orientation and self-identification, and the pressure of a stigmatized sexual identity forces some gay, lesbian, and bisexual adolescents to go to great lengths to prove to themselves and others that they are not gay."[9] This often involves engaging in heterosexual activity to prove that one is straight to themselves or others. It is clear then that sex education programs that incorporate information on HIV and sexuality in a non-stigmatizing way are beneficial in reducing risky sexual behavior among youth exploring their sexuality.

Efforts to suppress and stigmatize homosexuality can have devastating effects on the health and well-being of GLBTQ youth. A recent study of Latino gay and bisexual men, funded by the National Institutes of Health, found a correlation between experiences of homophobia and increased likelihood to engage in HIV risk behaviors. It also found that family acceptance and the presence of an openly gay role model while growing up correlated with lower incidence of HIV risk behaviors.[10] The promotion of homophobia and ignorance about HIV/AIDS and other STIs hurts all students, but especially those who are gay or from gay families.

References:

1. Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act. [PL 104-193.] Washington, DC: United States Congress, 1996.
2. Baldo M et al. Does Sex Education Lead to Earlier or Increased Sexual Activity in Youth, presented at the IXth International Conference on AIDS, Berlin, June 6-10, 1993. Geneva: World Health Organization, 1993.
3. UNAIDS. Impact of HIV and Sexual Health Education on the Sexual Behaviour of Young People: A Review Update. [UNAIDS Best Practice Collection, Key Material] Geneva, Switzerland: UNAIDS, 1997.
4. Kirby D. Emerging Answers: Research Findings on Programs to Reduce Teen Pregnancy. Washington, DC: National Campaign to Prevent Pregnancy, 2001.
5. Alford S et al. Science & Success: Programs that Work to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, HIV & Sexually Transmitted Infections. Washington, DC: Advocates for Youth, 2003.
6. Office of the Surgeon General. The Surgeon General's Call to Action to Promote Sexual Health and Responsible Sexual Behavior. Washington: Office of the Surgeon General, 2001; http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/sexualhealth/. For recent evaluations of the effectiveness of comprehensive sex education versus the ineffectiveness of abstinence-only-until-marriage education, visit http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/abstinenceonly.htm.
7. Hauser D. Five Years of Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Education: Assessing the Impact. Washington, DC: Advocates for Youth, 2004.
8. Kempner ME. Toward a Sexually Healthy America: Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs that Try to Keep Our Youth 'Scared Chaste.' New York: Sexuality Information & Education Council of the United States, 2001.
9. Blake SM et al. Preventing sexual risk behaviors among gay, lesbian, and bisexual adolescents: the benefits of gay-sensitive HIV instruction in schools. American Journal of Public Health 2001; 91:940-6.
10. Diaz RM, Ayala G. Social Discrimination and Health: The Case of Latino Gay Men and HIV Risk. New York: Policy Institute of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, 2001.

* Adapted and reprinted with permission. Cahill S and Jones KT. Leaving Our Children Behind: Welfare Reform and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community. New York, NY: The Policy Institute of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, © 2001.

Reprinted from Creating Safe Space for GLBTQ Youth: A Toolkit, Girl's Best Friend Foundation and Advocates for Youth, © 2005. [PDF file]

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