Inclusive Sex Education

In this episode of the GenderGP Podcast Marianne and Helen are joined by Heather Corinna (they/them), a non-binary writer, sex educator, and activist. Heather shares their wisdom from over 25 years of working to improve education around gender and sexuality for young people, and together they all discuss how understanding what connects us is more important than what sets us apart.

If you have been affected by any of the topics discussed in our podcast, and would like to get in touch, please contact us via the Help Centre. You can also contact us on social media where you will find us at @GenderGP on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

We are always happy to accept ideas for future shows, so if there is something in particular you would like us to discuss, or a specific guest you would love to hear from, let us know. Your feedback is really important to us. If you could take a minute or two to leave us a review and rating for the podcast on your favourite podcast app, it will help others to discover us. If you're a non-binary writer, don't hesitate to get in touch to write for us in our blog. 

 
Links:
Scarleteen | Sex Education for the Real World is written by non-binary writer, Heather’s website, offering “inclusive, comprehensive, supportive sexuality and relationships info for teens and emerging adults”.

 

You can follow Heather on Twitter @heathercorinna. They are also the author of several books, including S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-To-Know Sexuality Guide to Get You Through Your Teens and Twenties (now in a second edition), Wait, What? A Comic Book Guide to Relationships, Bodies, and Growing Up, and the forthcoming What Fresh Hell Is This? Perimenopause, Menopause, Other Indignities, and You, available from most booksellers.
 

We help you transition your way, on your terms. Find out more

 
The GenderGP Podcast
Inclusive Sex Education
 
Hello, this is Dr. Helen Webberley welcome to our GenderGP podcast, where we will be discussing some of the issues affecting the trans and non-binary community in the world today, together with my co-host Marianne Oakes, a trans woman, herself and our head of therapies.
 

Helen:

Hi everybody, Helen. We, she/her here today with Marianne. I she/her as you know us very, very well, and I'm very pleased to welcome Heather Corrina, they/them with us today. Heather, tell us all about you, tell us, um, what you do, what your interest is excite us with with your passion.

Heather:

gosh, you know, I mean, in the context of what we're doing here today, you know, I've been working in sex ed and education for going on almost 25 years now. Uh, I've been running Scarleteen for over 23 years now, which was one of the very first sex education websites and clearing houses online. Um, you know, to kind of, it seems a little silly to say it was the first inclusive thing online because it was one of the first sex education things online, period. It's always funny to me to kind of talk about doing sex ed inclusively as a non-binary person and a queer person. I, I really kind of couldn't do it another way because I'm right here. like I couldn't do it without, including myself. I started doing this work with younger people because they started asking me questions. And so, you know, for me, inclusivity, wasn't something where it was like, I wanna do it because I need to make sure to include everybody, It was built in from the beginning. You know, I wanted to answer the questions that everyone had and because a wide net was cast that anyone could ask me questions. It was baked in that, of course the education was inclusive because so many different people were asking questions and I was answering all of those questions. And so this was an accidental thing. I, at the time that I started doing this, I was teaching Montessori full time. And didn't really mean for this to be what I did with my whole life.

In this episode of the GenderGP Podcast Marianne and Helen are joined by Heather Corinna (they/them), a non-binary writer, sex educator, and activist. Heather shares their wisdom from over 25 years of working to improve education around gender and sexuality for young people, and together they all discuss how understanding what connects us is more important than what sets us apart.

If you have been affected by any of the topics discussed in our podcast, and would like to get in touch, please contact us via the Help Centre. You can also contact us on social media where you will find us at @GenderGP on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

We are always happy to accept ideas for future shows, so if there is something in particular you would like us to discuss, or a specific guest you would love to hear from, let us know. Your feedback is really important to us. If you could take a minute or two to leave us a review and rating for the podcast on your favourite podcast app, it will help others to discover us. If you’re a non-binary writer, don’t hesitate to get in touch to write for us in our blog. 

 

Links:

Scarleteen | Sex Education for the Real World is written by non-binary writer, Heather’s website, offering “inclusive, comprehensive, supportive sexuality and relationships info for teens and emerging adults”.

 

You can follow Heather on Twitter @heathercorinna. They are also the author of several books, including S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-To-Know Sexuality Guide to Get You Through Your Teens and Twenties (now in a second edition), Wait, What? A Comic Book Guide to Relationships, Bodies, and Growing Up, and the forthcoming What Fresh Hell Is This? Perimenopause, Menopause, Other Indignities, and You, available from most booksellers.

 

We help you transition your way, on your terms. Find out more

 

The GenderGP Podcast
Inclusive Sex Education

 

Hello, this is Dr. Helen Webberley welcome to our GenderGP podcast, where we will be discussing some of the issues affecting the trans and non-binary community in the world today, together with my co-host Marianne Oakes, a trans woman, herself and our head of therapies.

 

Helen:

Hi everybody, Helen. We, she/her here today with Marianne. I she/her as you know us very, very well, and I’m very pleased to welcome Heather Corrina, they/them with us today. Heather, tell us all about you, tell us, um, what you do, what your interest is excite us with with your passion.

Heather:

<laugh> gosh, you know, I mean, in the context of what we’re doing here today, you know, I’ve been working in sex ed and education for going on almost 25 years now. Uh, I’ve been running Scarleteen for over 23 years now, which was one of the very first sex education websites and clearing houses online. Um, you know, to kind of, it seems a little silly to say it was the first inclusive thing online because it was one of the first sex education things online, period. It’s always funny to me to kind of talk about doing sex ed inclusively as a non-binary person and a queer person. I, I really kind of couldn’t do it another way because I’m right here. <laugh> like I couldn’t do it without, including myself. I started doing this work with younger people because they started asking me questions. And so, you know, for me, inclusivity, wasn’t something where it was like, I wanna do it because I need to make sure to include everybody, It was built in from the beginning. You know, I wanted to answer the questions that everyone had and because a wide net was cast that anyone could ask me questions. It was baked in that, of course the education was inclusive because so many different people were asking questions and I was answering all of those questions. And so this was an accidental thing. I, at the time that I started doing this, I was teaching Montessori full time. And didn’t really mean for this to be what I did with my whole life. And then I was at the time trying to like during the day deal with like 30 three to five year olds, then come home at night and do this. And you know, you have to have a lot of energy to deal with 30 three to five year olds during the day. You can’t do it on three to five hours of sleep.

So I had to, I had to kinda picket and it was at a time where, you know, I remember that the person running the school that I was at was of the age that they thought that the internet was a fad. And I got lectured quite a lot on how foolish I was being, deciding to do this thing of this fadish internet thing that was gonna go away, you know? So it was kind of a big risk that I took, but I didn’t really think that it would kind of go could Kah-bloom, you know, at this point we generally have, by the end of the year, anywhere from 2 to 5 million users a year at Scarleteen to I’ve written two different sex ed books now “SEX” which is a really big, almost 500 page book, it’s kind of, some people use it as a textbook.

Um, some people just kind of use it as their like younger persons, our bodies, ourselves as the, kind of sex reference book that, you know, you have you flip it open when you need it. Um, then there’s “wait, what” which is the book that I think we’re probably gonna talk the most about today, which is a book for preteens that myself and Isabella Rotman did together. Gosh, I mean, there’s so much to say, you know, with Scarleteen, what we do is we, we have a lot of articles, right? So we’re writing a lot of static content. We also keep doing the site the way we always did it. We stay in conversation with young people everyday. So we still have direct services. We have a message board, we have a live chat, we have a text service. Our model for doing sex Ed has always been and remains that we provide what young people ask for. You know? So again, what, even when we’re writing articles, when we figure out what to write or what to ask writers to work on, it’s based on what young people are asking us. Um, so we don’t sit down and say, what would we have wanted? Or what do we find interesting. It’s, it’s really all based on what young people are asking us for.

Helen:

If I was to sum it up, you are the kind of person that is brave enough to write the answers to the questions that people want to know, but they might be a little bit too scared to ask, or it might be a little bit taboo to talk about. And I, I first came across you when I was, um, at the WPATH child and adolescent training course a couple of weeks ago. Um, and your book was being recommended. Uh, it was the “wait, what” book And I had a quick look and I thought, you know, this is, I remember when my teens were younger, you know what it’s like, you don’t really wanna talk to your teens that much about sex and all that kind of stuff that you don’t wanna think about them doing, and they don’t wanna think about you doing. And so I remember leaving those kind of books on under their pillow, uh, under their covers and they’d be like, “Oh mom, what have you left me now..”, And then when I saw that your book was specifically designed about gender and sexuality, um, in just plain talk and I really, really liked it. So tell us a little bit about what inspired that book, why that book, why that age group, um, where were the questions coming from?

Heather:

You know, it, it’s kind of funny that you say that because even when I kind of think, and I think how do I wind up in sex ed? And, you know, even when I was working in early childhood ed, I was the person that the, you know, when you’re talking about, you don’t wanna talk to your teenagers, I’ve never really had that feeling. I was always the teacher that the other teachers always assigned the stuff that they didn’t wanna talk about to the kids that they’d be like, oh, Heather will do it. Right? Like all of the awkward conversations that, and I, I don’t know what it its right. I just, I just don’t mind. Right? Like I just awkwardness. It’s not that it’s not awkward for me. It’s still awkward. Awkwardness just doesn’t bother me. I think as much as awkwardness bothers other people, right?

Like, cuz we’ll have teenagers off and say like, oh, it’s not awkward for you. It is awkward for me, but I just don’t care with “Wait, What” Of the things that we were kind of thinking about is that, you know, a lot of the times be because what we do is online, we’ll have people say, well, if there was really great sex ed in schools, we wouldn’t need this online education. And you know, one, we don’t really agree, you know, for one, I think that the kind of education that we give, especially in public schools, I feel like the idea that you could ever have, the kind of thing that we give in public schools is really, uh, optimistic. You know, I think <laugh> even the kind of conversations that we have. You would have to change the social culture of public schools so much to be able to make the kind of conversations that we have with young people, safe, separate from making it okay with parents to talk about the things that we talk about.

I mean, there’s just so much that would have to change, you know, so we disagree, but it’s also too that, you know, usually even good sex ed that gets into public schools. It’s something that is all year round, like English or math. It’s a two week or a three week course if you have that. And a lot of it is about, you know, you’ll have a course on birth control. You’ll have something about anatomy or have something about how pregnancy happens or sexually transmitted infections, maybe about consent, but a lot of what really gets left out. And especially for this age group, you know, the kind of preteens is the much trickier social stuff, right? And this is the stuff that’s really hard. How do you, as everybody’s relationships are changing and your bodies are changing and your sense of yourself and what you want from other people are changing.

How do you interact with each other sensitively? How do you talk to each other in a way that’s supportive and kind, how do you, you know, there’s a, one of my favorite kind of conversations between characters in the book is that there are two characters and one of them is talking about how she really likes words for orientation terms. And the other one is talking about how they really don’t like words for orientation terms, but they have this really wonderful conversation in which they each support each other. And one of them saying why there’s a value in those terms for them. And the other are one saying why it doesn’t really work for them, but they they’re okay about it instead of something that can happen when you don’t model how to have this conversation where you get a really bad clash where somebody’s, you know, somebody’s just hammering each other down and then neither one of them feels supported or somebody has to be right and somebody has to be wrong. Or, you know, one whole group of friends has to be right. And then the other person gets pushed out. And it’s this kind of stuff where you’re not gonna get this in a two week sex ed class and you can’t Google this, you know what I mean? You can Google to look up how effective the birth control pill is. You can, you can look up a video on how to put up a condom. This is the stuff that you, you just can’t kind of look up. And we kind of felt like if you had all of this before you went into a two to three week sex ed class two, you would have a really great foundation for that class. If you didn’t get a sex ed class, what you got this stuff you would still do pretty well. If you only were able to look things up online, right? Because this is kind of the social foundation and the trickier stuff.

Helen:

Marianne How, how, um, how important is this kind of education to young people to have it accessible at kind of like, you know, the learning book before you go into the, into the class, isn’t it really?

Marianne:

Where, where do we start actually after just want to go back a little bit, you know, this side here of it doesn’t need to be online. I think it definitely does because you just said yourself, finding a teacher, that’s not gonna be awkward about it, you know? Okay. Your employers were really lucky that there was somebody that could live with awkwardness. And the thing that came straight to my mind was when we were talking about freud, when I was doing counselor training and mentioned things like penis envy and being anal and all of this stuff going on and a group of adult people all could in the class, just with them words being banded about in a lesson. So what’s it like for a young child and what’s it like for teachers? So I think to be able to go online and read is really, really important.

And God, how I wish there had been something like that for me, you know, I, I I’ve told this story often that, that I found one word in the library book by accident and it’s, it just opened up a whole world to me and made me understand what was being written in the newspapers about people like me. And, and when I found it, I didn’t want anybody to see me reading the book, even though it was probably a dictionary or something. So I think to be able to go online and access this information, uh, is really important. And I grew up not knowing anything about gender diversity, let alone sexuality. Uh, it was a Catholic school. They were teaching us not to use contraception. You know, that was the, the level of sex ed that we had. And, and my parents a bit like you, um, or less forward than you Helen, you know, they weren’t leaving anything under my pillow. It was just kinda fumble about, you know, learn about your body and, you know, let’s all pretend it’s not happening. And I think that was typical of famalies So yeah. How far have we come? It blows my mind.

Heather:

One of the things with this realizing what we needed was what we were seeing, you know, at Scarleteen, where we have older youth coming in, right. We’re more seeing 15, 16, 17 year olds coming in. So some of it to us was seeing what don’t they seem to have when they’re coming in. And that was the other thing is like, what can we give them a little bit earlier again, I’m a little less concerned with a 12 year old knowing how birth control works. Right. You can look it up and it, most of them aren’t going to need that right now anyway, but certainly knowing how to, to be empathetic and kind to each other, knowing that their bodies are okay, knowing that whatever their identity is, they’re all right. You know, I mean, knowing that consent matters, right? Like these are much more important things to us, right? Like, I mean, it was people that came in that already at 12 and had a history of consent violations. That’s something that we wanted to stop seeing. Ideally,

Helen:

It’s interesting. Um, you know, we talk about, um, what’s available online to learn. And Marianne was then was talking about what was available when she was young to learn about what, what her, what the words might mean, what the feelings might be. And when I was as a doctor coming into this field to doing all the learning that I could possibly do, I obviously came across the DSM five, um, category for categorizing someone with gender dysphoria. And I, I came across it again the other day because obviously I just, I read it and put it aside and it’s really shocking, isn’t it? That, that’s what we might learn about. And, you know, a strong preference for playmates of the other gender, a strong rejection of typically masculine toys, games, activities, a strong dislike of your own sexual anatomy. And it’s kind of like, if this is what we are trying to teach professionals in assessing, or, or talking to young people who might have gender dysphoria, it’s a really bad starting point. Isn’t it? And that’s, <laugh>, that’s why, again, when I like your book so much, because the pictures are just like, what, what do you mean pink? Who cares? What’s pink. What’s a tractor doesn’t matter, you know?

Heather:

Right. I think the good news is, is that you catch some of this stuff early, too. Like, you know, and this is, you know, like, I mean, I saw this working in early childhood and now generationally, I see it with people this age anyway, if we don’t teach them otherwise, right? Like younger kids they’re already here it’s that they unlearn this stuff, right? Like a five year old already thinks this way, a five year old doesn’t think that there are things for boys and things for girls and that boys are this way and girls are this way, unless you teach them those things. Right. The, they learn those things from other people. They don’t, they don’t innately think those things, right? Like it is the people that you have to have big arguments with about gender aren’t six year olds, they’re 60 year olds, you know, like it’s very easy to have these conversations with young people, young people get it.

It’s older people that it’s so tricky and they, and when young people get really rigid about this stuff, it’s learned that rigidity, right? Like it’s not, they’re very flexible about it’s, you know, I’m not our cause I don’t think I have it, but you know, culturally our gender and flexibility that, that we put on them that then they pick up and carry forward. But that’s another thing, you know, when we did this book, we had, you know, a small like group of in-person focus group for this and you know, this whole thing, they were like, yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. For like nothing in here, nothing in here was news to them. Um, I think the only thing somebody asked for it was my kind of step-kid was like, I need a warning on the genitals page. That’s what, you know, we have the page, that’s like they’re coming up because she was kind of like, ah, like it was, she needed to know it was happening. But besides that, you know, there was nothing.

Marianne:

It’s interesting. And that, that you mentioned, you know, just teaching 12 year olds about consent. And I had a conversation with somebody earlier and about what’s inappropriate to a young girl, you know, and what’s inappropriate for young young men. And how do they recognize what is genuinely danger? And, and we, it, it is kind of omitted, isn’t it? I’d like to think that things like the me too movement movement will be just consigned to the history pages because people will grow better, more aware

Heather:

All of that behavior was so learned all misbehavior. Right? All of the misbehavior was absolutely all taught and passed down. I mean, how many of us in our families have been working so hard to be ending generational abuse, to be the person that it ends with?

Marianne:

Would it be fair to say as well that the next generation of teachers coming through with good education, that these subjects aren’t gonna be awkward? You know, when we talk about the awkwardness, it’s kind of awkward, breeds awkward.

Heather:

Uh, I think so. I mean, younger sex ed teachers absolutely seem to be more comfortable. I mean, look, it’s one of those things where I have to kind of check my ego a little bit because I’ll hear them kind of talk about how it’s like pleasure’s included and they take it for granted. Right. That I wanna be like, well, of course I’ve been working for this for 25 years. Right. That they’re like, well, of course it’s in here them thinking, well, yeah, because we’ve been working so hard, but it’s good. Right. They should feel that way. You want them to feel that way. I mean, you want a little attribution because <laugh>, <laugh>, there’s been some sweat equity involved, but the notion that some of them don’t even realize there was a time that it was like controversial to consider that pleasure should be part of sex Ed is fantastic. Right. Like, that’s great. And I do think that we’re getting to that, like, we’re absolutely getting to that. We’re getting to educators that won’t realize that there was the time that it was considered really iffy. I mean, I got raked over the coals when I was first working in this for talking about sex from the vantage point of pleasure, rather than love marriage commitment. I mean, those things could have been, you know, part of it, but that wasn’t my corner. So, or reproduction. Right. I got raked over the coals for being queer. You know, like it, it, you, didn’t used to get to be a queer sex educator and not be suspect merely by virtue of being a queer sex educator. Right. Like that’s been changing. Yeah. I think that probably even in just 10 years, we’re gonna see things be really different around all of this, which is fantastic.

Helen:

And I think that that difference is hopefully gonna come from our younger generations, isn’t it, as they come through with the tools that people like, like us here are hopefully equipping them with. And it’s interesting, you, you talk about being a sex educator and the suspicion that comes around that, you know, what’s your motive? Why, why sex education, why are those two together? And it reminded me of a bit of your badge, actually the badge that comes at the end of your book as it’s okay to be weird. And it’s another word that kind of is like, you know, queer/weird, you know, is that, is that okay? Is that not okay? Is it a negative word or a positive word? And again, it reminds me of those teenagers who are accused of trying to be cool because they’re joining LGBT type groups. And again, there’s that suspicion, isn’t it? Why are you doing that? Are you just trying to be cool? Why is that?

Heather:

Well, and if so, who cares? I mean, like , what’s the difference between that and joining, being a cheerleader to be cool. So, I mean, if so, okay. <laugh> I was just telling, I was telling a colleague of mine the other day about a story way, way back when I first, first started an education and I had this radio interview and I misunderstood the time that the interview was, I misunderstood the time zone and it was a phone call not a zoom call and it was already an early morning thing that I’d agreed to. It was like six in the morning, my time, which was early. But in fact it wasn’t, it was like five in the morning, my time. So the phone rings at five in the morning, I’d pick it up and it’s like, oh, it’s radio, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, oh my God.

Right. So I kind of get it together after grumbling. And first of all, it was from the south. I’m not from the south. And then I neglected to mention that the program was me talking and then a preacher, like this kind of debate situation. And it’s five in the morning and I’m like not awake and I’m green anyway. Right. I don’t know how to do this. I’m not the kind of person have debates with preachers. That’s not a thing. And somewhere in there, the preacher said, had something of that. It seems to him that I’m just trying to turn all young girls into lesbians and because I’m me and because it’s five in the morning and I’m not awake, I said, you know, if I could, I would, because if I could, like, there’d be no teen pregnancy, STI rates. It’d just be like herpes and BV. I like everybody would have orgasms for a while. Like, it would be great, but I don’t have that power. So I can’t. And then it was like silence. And they were like, wow, thanks for talking <laugh>.

And that was it. That was the end of that interview. But it is kind of one of these things that, again, like, even if I could, and I would so what, like the whole world has been trying to make people straight forever and cis for forever. Right? Like the biggest machines on earth have been trying to enforce those things for a million years. And we don’t hear anybody yelling about that with the same ferver so even if, even if who cares, you know, I mean, it’s kind of, even one of those things where I’m thinking, you know, let’s say right, that a straight cis kid is fine because it’s cool going and is gonna go hang out with all the queer trans theater kids for a while. That’s great because that’s gonna give them a whole bunch of things. That’s gonna give them a whole bunch of empathy. That’s gonna give them a whole bunch of exposure to a whole bunch of cultures. They wouldn’t have, otherwise there’s no loss there, no one loses from this,

Marianne:

The best education anybody kind of have. If they do come over or two, our side <laugh> for a short time is that they’ll start and value their privilege, you know? And, and, and they’ll value the color of society better. And I mean, the rainbow colors of society that how, you know, diversity is what makes the world a better place to live in. If you’re forever shielded from it, you’re gonna be a lesser person. Because like you say, you’re not gonna learn empathy. You’re not gonna understand how it, what privileges are I got and I’ll value them and I’ll want to share them with other people able to make sure it’s better. So, yeah,

Heather:

I think the, the hidden thread in that kind of, they’re just doing it because it’s cool is really what’s hidden in that is we don’t want them to do that because we still believe it’s contagious. You know, it’s contagious, right. That if they get near us, then, then they’ll be queer and then they’ll be trans and then they’ll be, you know, all the other things. Right. But nobody wants to say that they’re couching it in all of those other things. Yeah.

Helen:

And then as well, you have the other side of it, where if you have someone who is transgender or lesbian, gay, whatever, and they want to try the other way again, or for the first time they’re criticized. It’s like, well then you’re definitely not trans enough. You’re definitely coming back to the, the right way you’re coming. Oh, thank goodness for that. You, you’re definitely not trans, if you, if you wanna try out your birth gender, once again, you can’t win. Can you, it’s really, it’s really unfair.

Heather:

Yeah. I mean, I think that’s another thing too, where when you’re talking about generational change, the good news there is that younger people definitely are far more accepting of the notion of fluidity and the acceptance of fluidity period, whether it’s about gender, whether it’s about orientation. Um, and you know, again, some of that is also how we’ve been raised, you know, in queer and trans communities. There’s some empathy in understanding that there is some rigidity around binaries because for a long time, everybody had to hold a really hard line around binaries because you had to hold them to prove that you were in order to get the things that you needed to get to be validated. Right? Like, so, so I certainly have a lot of sympathy around that because it was a longstanding thing that everyone was forced to do by external forces. And it’s hard to change after that and let go, but I don’t have that sympathy for people that aren’t trans and queer, because that’s not their issue.

 

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