Source: PeopleImages / Getty
A lawmaker in New York wants a comprehensive sex education plan for kids starting at the age of 5. As part of a new bill in the state Senate sponsored by Sen. Samra Brouk (D-Rochester), Kindergarten students would be required to learn about sexual health and the courses would be mandatory statewide.
Some of those advocating for this is “Sex Ed for Social Change,” a progressive special interest group influencing Brouk’s proposal. According to the New York Post, “Under that group’s current standards, public and charter schools would have to teach 5-year-old’s about “gender identity” and instruct 8-year-old’s on hormone blockers to prevent puberty in transgender-identifying preteens.”
“Kids as young as 11 would get lectures on “vaginal, oral, and anal sex”; study “queer, two-spirit, asexual, pansexual” and other gender identities; and receive explicit instruction on the use of external and internal condoms, dental dams and other contraceptives.”
Brouk told The Post, “I am greatly concerned about the unacceptably high incidence of relationship violence, sexual harassment and assault, and online bullying in our society today. We must equip the next generation with the skills and education they will need to thrive.”
If the bill was passed by both chambers and signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, it would shift New York’s schools away from the recommendations of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS).
According to the latest curriculum laid out by the SIECUS, students start sexual education as kindergartners and by second grade, should be able to “define reproduction;” “list medically accurate names for body parts, including the genitals;” and “discuss the range of ways people express their gender and how gender-role stereotypes may limit behavior.”
“In kindergarten, that looks like basic lessons about friendship and communication, providing students with the building blocks they need to tackle issues like consent and sexual health years later in middle and high school,” Brouk wrote about the bill.
“At older ages those lessons include health matters like preventing unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.”
New York is one of 22 states that lacks a statewide sex-ed requirement. State law leaves the topic to local school districts to decide — other than HIV/AIDS instruction, which is required for grades K-12.
