There has been a bill introduced in the Minnesota legislature for creating a model sex ed program that would require schools to cover more comprehensive sexuality content. When it was introduced, we had the opportunity to testify using our research and one of the Reaction for Action group members stepped up to do it on short notice. There are a lot of things that were awesome about this, but something that really hit me was that researching young Minnesotan’s opinions about sex and being able to use it to impact policy was the reason why we all joined the project and why we applied for it. AND IT HAPPENED. A few months ago the group planned out all of the ways we could use the findings and created a timeline, which ended with sharing the data with lawmakers in Minnesota. We figured that would take a while and so we were happily surprised by this. There is still going to be a long journey with this bill, even in the hearing there was opposition raised about comp sex ed, how consent is included in the bill, and how the bill would be enforced and funded. It was fascinating being there and hearing where different lawmakers were at about sex ed, even if it’s a long journey to the kind of sex ed young people in Minnesota want and need.
Check out the recording of the testimony!