Florida bans instruction on contraception and consent in sex ed classes

The Florida Department of Education is prohibiting school districts from including core topics in their sex education courses, including contraception, consent, domestic violence, abuse, and LGBTQ issues. Instead, the state is instructing schools to "emphasize abstinence."

On August 21, state officials called educators from Broward County Public Schools to raise concerns about the school district’s sex education curriculum, the Orlando Sentinel reported. On the call, educators were told that “[p]ictures of external sexual/reproductive anatomy” or discussions of “[d]ifferent types of sex (i.e., anal, oral, and vaginal)” should not be included in “any grade level.” State officials emphasized that “[c]ontraceptives are not part of any health or science standard.” Contraceptives could only be mentioned as a “health resource” and pictures or demonstrations on how to use contraceptives were prohibited.

Schools across Florida have also been ordered to remove content mentioning “abuse, consent, domestic violence, fluids, gender identity and LGBTQ information,” according to Elissa Barr, a professor of public health at the University of North Florida, who has talked to sex education teachers in around a dozen districts. According to Barr, prohibiting words like “‘fluids’ will make it hard to accurately teach how HIV is transmitted.” Florida is currently "reporting more HIV diagnoses than almost any other state."

A Florida Department of Education spokesperson defended the new restrictions, telling the AP, “A state government should not be emphasizing or encouraging sexual activity among children or minors and is therefore right to emphasize abstinence.” 

Earlier in September, Popular Information reported that some Florida school districts were not teaching sex education at all due to a new state law. In May 2023, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) signed a law, HB 1069, that requires schools to “teach abstinence from sexual activity outside of marriage as the expected standard for all school-age students.” The law requires that “all materials used to teach reproductive health” be approved by the Florida Department of Education, or for schools to use textbooks that are pre-approved by the state. 

Schools were required to submit their materials for review by the end of September 2023. The Florida Department of Education, however, never reviewed the materials. Several districts therefore decided to not risk teaching sex education at all during the 2023-24 school year. Other counties, including Broward, taught classes that were not approved. 

The new feedback on sex education materials from the Florida Department of Education comes almost a full year after materials were required to be submitted for approval. 

Because of the new restrictions, school districts must now change their sex education curriculum at the last minute, over a month into the school year. Orange County Public Schools is planning on using the pre-approved textbook, while Broward County Public Schools is planning on “comply[ing] with state requirements” and “emphasiz[ing] abstinence” in their curriculum. One pre-approved textbook used last year in Lake County emphasizes that the “only effective way to prevent STDs and pregnancy” is abstinence. It does not mention contraception. The textbook also promotes going on “group dates rather than spend[ing] one-on-one time with a partner.”

The failure of abstinence-only education

Research shows that Florida's abstinence-only approach does not result in teens having less sex.

A 2007 study evaluating  federally-funded abstinence-only education programs found that the teens who participated in the programs were no more likely to abstain from sex than students who did not participate. It also showed that among the teens who did have sex, the mean age when they became sexually active was the same between participants and non-participants. Other studies have found that states with abstinence-only sex education programs have higher rates of teen pregnancy, while comprehensive sex education — which is now banned in Florida — has been found to reduce instances of pregnancy, HIV, and other STDs in teens.

In 2022, the most recent year for which the CDC has made data available, the teen pregnancy rate in Florida was 13.1 per 1,000. This puts Florida in the middle of the pack when compared to other states. Florida's teen pregnancy rate has decreased over the last decade, but that trend could change as more students fail to receive comprehensive sex education.

While teen pregnancy is trending down, more and more Florida teens are contracting STDs, according to data collected by the Florida Department of Health. In 2023, 7,263 Florida teens had gonorrhea, which is slightly less than in 2022, but more than any other year since 2006. There were 26,986 cases of chlamydia, up from 2022, and 543 had syphilis, which is the most since 2006 (the first year for which data is available).

Further, sex education programs like Florida’s teach that only heterosexual relationships are healthy, invalidate the identities of transgender and non-binary students, and stigmatize LGBTQ students. About two-thirds of LGBTQ youth, who already face more harassment and serious mental health challenges than other students, said that proposals at the state and local levels to ban the discussion of LGBTQ identities in schools "made their mental health a lot worse."