Discourses of Exclusion: Sexuality Education's Silencing of Sexual Others

This article begins with a broad historical overview detailing how school-based sexuality education has been taught from a specific kind of heterosexual perspective that has excluded lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer-identified (LGBTQ) students as well as heterosexual students who do not fall along culturally dominant heterosexual lines. To illustrate such exclusionary sexuality education, we examine the discourses of exclusion in U.S.-based and international models of sexuality education. Then we turn to a continuum of sexuality education programs ranging from no sexuality education at all, abstinence-only, abstinence-based, to comprehensive, and anti-oppressive approaches. We conclude by offering ideas about the ideal characteristics or qualities needed for sexuality education to be inclusive of LGBTQ youth. This would not only stem the tide of the negative impact exclusionary sexuality education practices have had on these youth, but also such an educational experience—which would involve an inclusive interdisciplinary approach across the curriculum—would likely be beneficial in a variety of ways to all students.