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David Cameron Can't Even Say the Word 'Gay' When It Comes to Sex Education

He's failed to mention gay students entirely in his reply to an open campaign letter calling for schools to teach pupils about same-sex relationships.
David Cameron
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Image via Wikimedia Commons

In October last year, an open letter signed by myself and 29 leading LGBT groups and individuals was sent to David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg calling for statutory age appropriate Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) in schools that should – crucially – also be lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans inclusive.

The campaign (#SameSexSRE) highlighted the importance of "LGBT inclusivity", because lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans young people are almost always invisible in the education system. In a recent National AIDS Trust survey, 85 percent of gay and bisexual men said they received no information about same-sex relationships at school. This invisibility can push vulnerable young gay people further into the closet, or to more extreme actions.

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Where Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband explicitly outlined the importance of LGBT inclusive SRE in their replies to our letters, David Cameron's response was, frankly, disappointing. Our letters specifically outlined the problems faced by the gay community, but the Conservative party leader's reply didn't once mention "gay" or "LGBT" or address the very specific facts that were presented to him. It's ironic how, in a letter that outlines the isolation of young lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people, the LGBT community is made further invisible by Cameron's glaring omission. You'd laugh, if it wasn't so frustrating.

Cameron agreed in his reply on the "importance of high-quality PSHE in schools", but there was a caveat. "However, while it is important that all schools provide high-quality PSHE to their pupils, we do not believe that we should tell schools exactly what to cover under PSHE," he wrote.

In other words, we shouldn't have to teach specifically about gay sex.

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This isn't good enough. Gay men's wellbeing is facing a major crisis. I devised the campaign because the young gay community is rife with problems like drug and alcohol dependency, feelings of isolation, increasingly risky sexual practices and wider mental health issues. Many of us have witnessed friends suffer. Tackling these problems in individuals when they reach critical levels solves nothing in the long run. At that point damage is already inflicted. Individuals can be helped in a crisis, but all the while the circle of suffering continues in others.

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These problems will be at huge financial cost to the NHS. The government has recognised prevention is better than cure in everything from diabetes to heart disease, so why are they not applying the same thought process to the sexual health and mental wellbeing of future generations – gay or straight?

Current sex and relationship education in maintained secondary schools is largely based on the biological facts of procreation. Some schools offer more in depth SRE, but they are in the extreme minority, with only around a quarter teaching about LGBT relationships. But to Cameron's, "Schools should consider the needs of their pupils, which differ from school to school…" response, I say: bollocks.

The modern world is far removed from the one Cameron and his fellow Etonians grew up in. The days of a gay teenage boy flicking through his mum's Next catalogue to check out the fit male underwear models are gone.

Deborah Gold, chief executive of the National Aids Trust and a supporter of the #SameSexSRE campaign, says: "There are LGBTI young people at every school. They all have a need and a right to learn about healthy and safe relationships and sex. This is equally true in every school."

It's fantastically naïve to say that young people's needs differ school to school, and to assume that there won't be a crop – however small – of closeted, confused gay or trans kids in every school across the UK.

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Personally, I believe that Cameron is a different kind of Conservative. I think he made a bold move when he stood against the grassroots of his party and pushed for same sex marriage. He's not like those calcified back-bench Tories who voted against equality. But he still misses the mark on understanding the issues that are affecting young people today, and that warrants our attention.

The modern world is far removed from the one Cameron and his fellow Etonians grew up in. The days of a gay teenage boy flicking through his mum's Next catalogue to check out the fit male underwear models are gone. We live in an increasingly connected world. You don't even need to go to your local gay bar to meet a guy – you can get on Grindr and be in their living room within a few texts. That is the reality now. Sex is, literally, a click away.

The lack of advice available to the young LGBT community has gay teenagers seeking answers elsewhere. Just the other day a friend in his early thirties told me how an 18 year old boy recently turned up to a sex party of ten or so gay adults. He'd met the hosts of the party on a popular hook-up app, and, during his stay, engaged in unsafe sex.

Young gay men are not being educated about the importance of protected sex, which is a major contributing factor in why HIV rates in this group are rising. I've met them myself, and they're often teenagers who simply have no idea that HIV exists in a modern UK. But it does.

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These issues don't just affect young gay guys, either. This week, the Times reported how thousands of teenage girls, some as young as 13, have been coerced into sex or sexual activity by a boyfriend. Worryingly, the report went on to state that two in five girls aged between 13 and 17 had suffered sexual coercion of some sort, ranging from rape to being pressurised into going further than they wanted.

All these examples sound extreme, but this is actually happening. If we don't educate and inform young people about the facts and realities of sexual health, relationships, consent, body image and more, then we are making the realities of their lives invisible.

Last week on Question Time, Education Secretary Nicky Morgan said, "A good education transforms lives." Shouldn't that apply here, too?

@CliffJoannou

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