sex education in the deaf community

Sex education, in general, is so limited in today’s schools. In fact, 28 states don’t even require it to be taught and only 13 states require that sex ed instruction be medically accurate. Which is to blame for teen pregnancy and Sexually Transmitted Infection rates in the US being substantially higher than in other developed countries. Teen pregnancy in America is 26.5 births to every 1,000 teen girls. And STI’s are 1 in 4 teen girls. Not to mention the statistics on sexual violence, but we will get into that later.

First a little history of generalized Sex Education in the US. The first sex ed curriculum called “Sex Hygiene Classes” was introduced in 1913 in Chicago by a woman named Ella Flag Young. (Go Ella!) She was also the first female superintendent of schools in the city. Unfortunately for Ella and her students, the Catholic Church didn’t like this very much and put an end to her program after only one year.

It wasn’t until the US entered World War I that the government realized it had a major problem. The Army lost a total of 7 million working days from soldiers suffering from STI’s. A total of 10,000 soldiers were discharged for having them. The White House concluded that so many American soldiers wouldn’t have contracted STI had they been better educated about sex.

In the 20’s 40% of American Public Schools started teaching sex ed. In the 30s the US Office of Education began publishing materials and training teachers on how to teach sex ed

In 1981 the Reagan Administration introduced the Adolescent Family Life Act. This law put a ton of funding towards sex ed programs that promoted abstinence. Abstinence was the single biggest influencer on modern-day sex ed curriculum. But, jokes on them, because research showed that abstinence-only-programs didn’t work. Teens still had just as much sex and states with absence-only-education had the highest rates of teen pregnancies. In fact a 2008 study reported that teens who received comprehensive sex education were 60% less likely to get pregnant than those who received abstinence-only-education. So in 2010 Obama cut funding for abstinence-only-programs by 2/3rds and for the first time ever the government began funding comprehensive-sex-ed-programs. This included conversations about contraception. Today both abstinence-only sex ed and more comprehensive-sex ed are equally funded by the government. This unfortunately still leaves us with only 18 states requiring those kinds of comprehensive classes.

I think it’s important to know the history of sex education first because this really paints a picture of the sex education we have in the hearing world. It’s disheartening and not great. I can NOT possibly imagine how some deaf people are receiving their sexuality education secondhand from this already butchered topic. While I was doing this particular research, I have concluded that there is an appalling lack of research on the topic of sex education in the deaf community. Here is what I did find doing my own research by interviewing people in the deaf community.

“Before the age of 18, where did your sex education come from? Who taught you?”

B. Female 50’s: “I went to a mainstream school. We had “the sex talk” in health class, I had an interpreter. She mostly fingerspelled words she didn’t want to sign.”

D. Female 40s: “I didn’t have sex ed in school, I learned from friends, and my husband.”

“Did you feel accurately prepared with the sex education you received?”

B. “No”

D. “No”

During my research for this, I have found so many stories where deaf people of all ages are deprived from their rights to be educated about their bodies, because often interpreters are more concerned about how the deaf student’s classmates who can hear would react when they see sexuality in ASL. Or it’s the interpreters themselves that feel uncomfortable with these signs, given the language it is so visual. With 85% of D/HH children attending mainstream schools that means most of deaf students are getting terrible sex education. There should not be a barrier to any person from receiving education they deserve in order to know their bodies and have healthy interpersonal relationships, let alone the deaf community.

Other research reported that 95% of young deaf mothers stated they could not understand the written sex education information they had been given. 83% stated that they had left school with no sex education, or that they missed important information because it was not clearly provided in school. This could be due to the fact that their first language is ASL and not English. We also know that the majority of the deaf community’s reading level is that of 4th grade. Worse than that, in discussions with groups of deaf students they found there was extreme ignorance around using contraception. Many believed you could use socks, crisp packets or cling film as an alternative to condoms.

Language barriers aren’t just inconvenient and frustrating, they’re dangerous too. according to a statistic put out by the Washington Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs, 54% of boys who are deaf have been sexually abused compared to 10% of hearing boys. 50% of girls who are deaf have been sexually abused compared to 25% of girls who are hearing.

Even though, an overwhelming 96% of adults in the U.S believe that it’s important to have sex education in school, we are not doing a good job of providing it. We’re even worse at making sure that this crucial education is accessible to people who are deaf. If deaf people are not going to learn in school or at home, where are they supposed to learn and understand their bodies better to learn to celebrate and protect themselves. We need to do better. We need to break down these barriers by encouraging educators and parents in our community. Promoting accessible accurate and empowering sexual education could make a world of difference. The more we have healthy and authentic conversations about sexuality the more accessible it is for everyone.

I decided to leave out sex education from a religious standpoint in this research. I think I could fill 5 more pages with people’s religious beliefs on the subject of sexuality and education. This was a topic I care a very large amount about. I tried to shorten it the best I could.