Sex education is a necessary and vital piece of young people’s education – one that impacts our decisions, our health and potentially our whole lives. Regardless of people’s beliefs, we deserve truthful, medically accurate information that speaks to our real, diverse experiences and trusts us to make informed decisions.

Choice USA’s Sex[+] Campaign is a youth-led, youth-driven effort to shape policy on sex education – an issue that directly and intimately affects young people.

In the summer of 2009, Choice USA members from across the country voted to make comprehensive sex education our national campaign. The Sex[+] campaign supports young peoples’ efforts to advocate for comprehensive sex education programs in their states and communities – and demands that Congress fund comprehensive sex education programs, starting with the passage of the REAL (Responsible Education About Life) Act.

For the past eight years, federal funding for abstinence-only has failed to equip young people with the information needed to make healthy and informed decisions about sex. A 2008 CDC study found that 1 in 4 young women between the ages of 14 and 19 in the United States is infected with an STI. The study also showed that nearly half of adolescent African-American girls are infected with an STI. Young people aged 13-29 accounted for 34% of new HIV infections in 2007, the largest share of any group.

Abstinence-only education assumes that all young people across the country have the same experience with sex and sexuality and disseminates misinformation about contraception, abortion, STIs and pregnancy. Abstinence-only curriculum does not respond to the powerful realities we face and stigmatizes:
-those who have already chosen to have sex
-those who are in or plan to have non-traditional families
-LGBTQ youth
-survivors of sexual abuse
-and those of us abstaining for reasons outside of a marriage model.

Comprehensive sex education programs teach “more than the birds and the bees,” empowering young people with truthful information about sex and sexuality. By providing young people with the positive, medically accurate information, comprehensive sex education trusts us to make informed decisions about our health and lives. Comprehensive sex education programs include discussions around personal safety, healthy relationships, abstinence, sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, birth, parenting and sexual orientation.

By leading the Sex[+] Campaign on our campuses and in our communities, youth across the country are standing up and making our voices heard! Together we are demanding legislators pass the REAL Act, a bill that would create the first ever federal funding stream for comprehensive sex education. The REAL Act would mark the beginning of sex education in our classrooms that delivers age-appropriate, medically accurate information about sex and sexuality to young people, empowering us to make healthy, informed decisions about sex and its broader impact on our lives. We believe passing the REAL Act is the first of many steps in providing truly comprehensive sex education for young people.

It’s time to stand up for REAL change! Join the Sex[+] Campaign to get comprehensive sex education in our classrooms:

Sign onto our petition pressuring legislators to pass the REAL Act. If you want to launch the Sex[+] Campaign on your campus, contact us here .

Click here for comprehensive sex education information and resources

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