by Saawan Duvvuri ’26
May 2024
At USN, human sexuality seminars begin as early as middle school and continue through senior year, where students learn about topics ranging from healthy relationships and consent, to birth control to STI prevention.
According to USN High School Counselor and organizer of USN’s sophomore human sexuality seminars (HSS), Latricia Watkins, the purpose of USN’s HSS is to create a space to have healthy conversations around sexual awareness and relationships.
“[Human] Sexuality seminars offer a time for trained professionals to meet with students [mostly high school sophomores], giving them an opportunity to ask questions about anything they are curious about as it relates to maintaining healthy bodies, healthy relationships, and anything about sexual prevention and awareness,” Watkins said.
USN collaborates on its human sexuality curriculum through a partnership with Planned Parenthood, a 501(c)(3) non-profit providing reproductive health care and sex education to people worldwide. Human sexuality seminars are not currently taught by USN faculty at the high school level.
“Planned Parenthood create[s] a curriculum tailored to the needs of [USN] students by analyzing data from integrative well-being models and community surveys administered by USN,” Watkins said.
Watkins also expressed the importance of student feedback to the development of the sophomore HSS curriculum.
“[Sophomores] have the opportunity to submit feedback and any questions that they are curious about to Planned Parenthood for Planned Parenthood to address in their seminars at USN,” Watkins said.
Watkins said that there is no political agenda associated with human sexuality seminars. She also said that she has received little to no pushback this year from high school parents concerning political discomfort with topics discussed in USN’s sexuality programs.
While human sexuality education is important, it is often controversial in American society. Due to the political connotations of topics like contraception, gender roles, and sexual orientation, sex education in middle and secondary schools across the nation often spark debates from parents and educators alike.
Beth Eberl, director of counseling at USN, says that “LGBTQ+ seminars were added to USN’s sexuality programming to promote more inclusivity in USN’s seminars.”
Eberl explains that the inclusion of LGBTQ+ topics came to USN around four years ago, after multiple discussions with USN’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance. She reports that USN has changed certain content in its LGBTQ+ seminars based on comments from parents and students towards certain subjects discussed.
Specifically in predominantly Republican states like Tennessee, topics like LGBTQIA+ relationships and gender identity are more likely to be ignored in schools offering sex education. According to the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), just 32.4% of Tennessee high schools taught all 22 critical sexual health education topics defined by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the 2019-2020 school year.
What is discussed in sexual education programs significantly varies from school to school. While 91.1% of Tennessee high schools taught students about the benefits of being sexually abstinent, topics such as condom usage and sexual orientation were taught at just 39.7% and 56.7% of high schools, respectively.
In a survey sent to hundreds of 10th-12th graders in the USN community, 28 respondents gave varied responses towards several questions about USN’s sophomore HSS program.
While many USN high school students agree with Watkins’ statements that there is no political bias associated with USN’s human sexuality seminars, several students note a “left-leaning” attitude in some of the topics discussed.
One student, who asked to remain anonymous, said that Planned Parenthood’s promotion of practicing “safe sex” over sexual abstinence—as well as discussions on topics like “abortion, contraception, and LGBTQ+ ideology”— may be opposed by those on the political right.
Another student remarked on LGBTQ+ topics in USN’s sexuality seminars, saying, “it felt out of place to talk about gender identity,” and further asserted that conversations on gender identity “could have been included in a separate lesson.”
44.4% of USN’s survey respondents believed that USN hosts “Just the right amount” of human sexuality seminars, while 25.9% respondents believed that USN hosts “too many” sexuality seminars. 68% of the survey respondents were women.
LGBTQ+ content repeatedly emerged as one of the most controversial human sexuality topics amongst USN students. While several students commented that they wished that USN held more LGBTQ+ sexuality seminars, many students had concerns with LGBTQ+ seminars.
Drew Brackett ‘24 mentioned that “the LGBTQ+ seminar was way too graphic,” and that he “would have been better off not knowing any of the content” in that program.
Another student who preferred to remain anonymous agreed, highlighting their discomfort with some of the details one LGBTQ+ instructor talked about. Furthermore, the student stated that if they were a parent, they “would be pretty disturbed about the materials of that presentation.”
Additionally, some students suggested that the seminars would benefit from less repetitive programming. One student elaborated on this idea, saying, “There are too many meetings for too few topics they choose to discuss, and it gets too repetitive for it to be useful. If the six talks we had were about new concepts and simply reviewed previous things at the beginning [of each new seminar], it would be more useful.”
However, many students agreed that there were educational benefits to USN’s Human Sexuality seminars. Multiple students said that they learned new information through programming on topics like “consent, safe sex practices, contraceptive devices, and types of relationships.”
Henry Gatto ‘25 elaborated, saying he learned “lots of information about STD’s and STI’s” and “about effective [methods] of protection.”
Human sexuality is a complex and controversial subject to teach students about, and USN students have varied responses on how they feel about topics discussed in USN’s programming. Discomfort may be inherent to the subject matter.
“I don’t think that people in high school will ever feel fully comfortable during sexuality seminars, but that I think that their uncomfortableness will be resolved with maturity,” Alondra Martinez ‘26 said.
