A Minnesota state representative is renewing her push to require schools to teach students about “diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.”
State Rep. Sydney Jordan, a Democrat from Minneapolis, said Friday she has introduced a bill to bring comprehensive sex education, or CSE, to all Minnesota schools.
“Students are demanding access to information about their bodies, consent, and contraception and it’s time the [Minnesota Legislature] listens,” she said.
Today I dropped a bill to include comprehensive sex education in Minnesota schools. Students are demanding access to information about their bodies, consent, and contraception and it’s time the #mnleg listens. pic.twitter.com/T49QqNNPGN
— Sydney Jordan (@SydneyJordanMN) January 6, 2023
The text of the bill hasn’t been published yet, but Jordan has introduced similar legislation in the past.
In 2021, she authored a bill that received widespread Democratic support and would have required the Minnesota Department of Education to create “one or more model comprehensive sexual health education programs for elementary and secondary school students.”
These programs would have been required to teach students about “relationships involving diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.”
“One of the most important parts of comprehensive sex education is knowing about gender identity … I was never taught that there was anything other than a heteronormative view of relationships,” Jordan said during a 2021 hearing on the bill.
The 2021 bill would have allowed parents to opt their children out of the curriculum, according to Jordan.
The bill also would have permitted “a person without a teaching license” to provide CSE instruction in schools, including people from a “community organization.”
Conservatives argued that this would have allowed activists and Planned Parenthood employees into schools. Planned Parenthood is a leading advocate and provider of comprehensive sex ed.
The director of Planned Parenthood’s sex education arm faced criticism last month when Fox News discovered his claim that children are “sexual beings” from birth.
Child Protection League, a vocal opponent of CSE in Minnesota, says comprehensive sex education teaches that children “can have any kind of sex anywhere, anytime, with anybody, at any age, and it’s perfectly normal.”
“CSE removes all natural and protective boundaries for children and teens, encouraging early sexual exploration in graphic detail,” the group says on its website.
A 2020 review found “little evidence that CSE programs are effective at producing positive impacts on their participants,” noting that in some cases CSE led to increased sexual activity.
“Perhaps of greatest concern, this new analysis found harmful effects on children and youth for roughly one in six school-based comprehensive sex education programs worldwide,” an author of the review said.
Democrats are now in full control of the Minnesota Legislature, leaving few obstacles in the way of CSE’s passage this year.
Anthony Gockowski
Anthony Gockowski is Editor-in-Chief of Alpha News. He previously worked as an editor for The Minnesota Sun and Campus Reform, and wrote for the Daily Caller.
