Perspectives of Secondary School Educators Teaching Gender and Sexuality in Health Education
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Materials and Methods
3. Results
3.1. Relationships and Sexual Education
My mention of abstinence is that it is a form of contraception and that it’s the only one that’s 100%, you know, safe and 100% proven that nothing, you know, you’re not going to get an STI or pregnant or anything if you’re not having sex.
Yeah, so sometimes I get, some curveball questions, in regard to same-sex marriage in, you know, ‘Are we born gay?’ and, you know, abortion and I do get these types of questions and, and that’s where I need to tread really carefully.
You’ve got to be very, very careful because, you know, you don’t want to, I mean, you don’t want to do anything that’s going to damage the mental health for a start. But also, it’s a very unpopular opinion to say ‘Well, could you not just live as another, as the other gender or the gender you’re choosing to identify as, and then have permanent surgical procedures, like later when you, you know, when all the hormones have calmed down?’ That’s probably, yeah, at this point in time, that’s probably the most controversial thing that’s going on.
Non-binary yeah, and they’ve all decided they’re something. And um, I just, I just wonder how much of this is trending and that when they get older, do they um change their mind because a lot of them haven’t told their parents and it’s, um, yeah, I really struggled with that because it wasn’t around when I was a kid. I wonder how much of that has something to do with social media and yeah, a lack of resilience or the need for something that makes them stand out.
I’ve got a couple of kids at school, who were going through the Gender Diversity Centre. So, you know, trying to teach, teach that and be and be cognisant of how they’re feeling and how you address them and all of that sort of stuff in class when a lot of their classmates don’t know what’s going on in their world is really quite, really difficult.
3.2. Health Education Teaching Perspectives
When I go into the classroom, I’m, like, we’re learning about sexual health now in year 9 and I just think, like, I really want these girls because it’s a girls class to make, like, the best decisions they can for themselves and just like, um, yeah, make healthy decisions. So yeah, I guess with everything, I am, I’m trying to emphasise, like, what’s good decision making.
It always has to come back to the point of why I teach this topic, which is you need to be able to stay safe and know how to avoid something, if it’s going to be unsafe for you, or the people around you.
4. Discussion
Supplementary Materials
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Lockhart, E.; Bickmore-Brand, J.; Doecke, P. Perspectives of Secondary School Educators Teaching Gender and Sexuality in Health Education. Youth 2025, 5, 4. https://doi.org/10.3390/youth5010004
Lockhart E, Bickmore-Brand J, Doecke P. Perspectives of Secondary School Educators Teaching Gender and Sexuality in Health Education. Youth. 2025; 5(1):4. https://doi.org/10.3390/youth5010004
Chicago/Turabian StyleLockhart, Emily, Jennie Bickmore-Brand, and Phil Doecke. 2025. "Perspectives of Secondary School Educators Teaching Gender and Sexuality in Health Education" Youth 5, no. 1: 4. https://doi.org/10.3390/youth5010004
APA StyleLockhart, E., Bickmore-Brand, J., & Doecke, P. (2025). Perspectives of Secondary School Educators Teaching Gender and Sexuality in Health Education. Youth, 5(1), 4. https://doi.org/10.3390/youth5010004