The trouble with sex education

Drawing penises and making vulvas out of Play-Doh might not be the reply most parents expect when they pose the question, ‘What did you get up to at school today?’ But with even the youngest children now encountering explicit content and bizarre teaching methods in mandatory sex education classes, it is an answer more might come to hear.

Masturbation, oral sex, anal sex, fisting, rough sex, gender queer, polyamory. When the school curriculum can be confused with the dropdown menu of a pornography website, something has gone wrong. But it is not just highly sexualised content that is concerning parents, they are worried about ideologically-driven and scientifically-inaccurate lessons in gender identity, too.

Children are being taught that people have a gender identity distinct from their sex and that – despite what their biology teachers may have said – sex itself is just a label randomly assigned at birth. This allows pupils to be introduced to dozens of gender identities: from non-binary and agender, to demigirl and boi.