News
Sex Ed for All Month
May 01, 2025
May Is #SexEdForAll Month!
Join Us in Fighting for the Sex Education All Young People Need and Deserve
Join us as we celebrate May as Sex Ed for All Month and voice our commitment to a world where all young people—no matter who they are or where they live—get the sex education they deserve.
Sex Ed for All Month—an annual campaign coordinated by the Sex Education Collaborative—is a national call to action to ensure all young people have access to sex education that is comprehensive, medically accurate, and inclusive. In 2025, this is about more than just sex education. Sex Ed for All Month is about fighting back against attacks on truth and standing up for young people. As we look to help young people have healthy relationships and positive health outcomes, here is some information on sex education.
A great education includes sex education. It helps young people learn how to have healthy relationships, make informed decisions, and respect their own and others’ boundaries.
- Sex education addresses a wide range of topics in age-appropriate ways to help keep young people safe, healthy, and happy.
- Sex education is more than just putting condoms on bananas. It teaches young people how to have healthy relationships with themselves and others.
- In elementary school, sex education covers age-appropriate topics like consent and boundary setting with friends, understanding our bodies and puberty, and respecting different kinds of families.
- In middle school, sex education supports kids in developing a healthy body image and addresses age-appropriate issues like healthy peer relationships and anti-bullying, staying safe online, and media literacy skills.
- In high school, sex education covers birth control, safer sex, sexual decision-making, and communication skills, as well as discussions of how our society and culture shape our ideas about sex, gender, and race.
- In college, sex education helps young people make decisions that are best for their health and well-being.
Sex education works. It gives young people the knowledge and skills they need to grow up safe, healthy, and confident, and respectful of others.
- Research shows that sex education that is culturally responsive and inclusive helps young people develop the social and emotional skills they need to become kind and empathetic human beings and healthier and more well-adjusted adults. .
- Young people who receive sex education have better self-esteem and healthier relationships.
- Sex education that teaches diversity, equity, and inclusivity can also help build school connectedness, which supports student achievement.
- Sex education that includes LGBTQ+ identities has been shown to reduce bullying, discrimination, and harassment, making schools safer for all youth.
- Specifically, sex education leads to better body image, more empathy and respect for others, better communication skills, better management of feelings, better sense of self-control and safety, prevention of child sex abuse and dating and intimate partner violence, development of healthy relationships, better understanding of gender equity and appreciation of sexual diversity, more protection against mis/disinformation (online and from peers), lower STI rates, and fewer unintended pregnancies,
- Medical experts agree that sex education that is comprehensive, inclusive, and medically accurate is critical for young people.
- Sex education teaches young people the importance of treating everyone with dignity and respect, including themselves. School-based sex education that addresses LGBTQ+ relationships and sexual violence prevention helps young people prevent and respond to sexual violence.
Sex education is not controversial. The overwhelming majority of Americans,(including medical experts, parents, and young people,support sex education.
- Despite the loud but small opposition, parents overwhelmingly support comprehensive sex education in schools. 96% of parents support sex education in high school, and 84% of parents support sex education in middle school.
- The vast majority of Republicans and Democrats agree that sex education covering a wide range of topics is important to teach in middle and high school.
- Major medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association, support sex education as essential public health policy.
- Sex education at school supports sex education at home. School programs emphasize and support family communication about sex and relationships.
Limiting or attempting to ban sex education will not stop young people's curiosity.
- Banning sex education doesn’t make young people less curious—it just makes them more vulnerable to misinformation.
- Young people will still learn about sex, relationships, and their bodies—just from less reliable, potentially harmful sources, including social media, pornography, and AI-generated content.
- Digital literacy must be part of sex education, ensuring that young people can spot misinformation, navigate online relationships safely, and protect their privacy.
At the Center for Health and Well-being, we want all students to have the information they want and need to make the best decisions for them about their own sexual health - from abstinence to safer sexual practices - we believe all GVSU student should have access to medically accurate, affirming sex education if they want it.