Global Sexual Freedom Watch

Catholic church abuse: at least one youth castrated for ‘homosexuality’

(También en Español)

News of Note: Catholic church abuse: at least one youth castrated for ‘homosexuality’

At least one boy under the age of 16 was castrated to ‘help’ his homosexual feelings while in Catholic church care in the 1950s, the NRC reported on Saturday.

But there are indications at least 10 other boys were also castrated, the paper said. The claims were not included in the Deetman report on sexual abuse within the Catholic church published at the end of last year.

The paper says the one confirmed case concerned a boy – Henk Heithuis – who reported being sexually abused by priests to the police in 1956. After giving evidence, he was placed in a Catholic-run psychiatric institution where he was then castrated because of his ‘homosexual behaviour’.

The protections given to religious institutions for criminal behavior are absurd. Sure this was 60 years ago, but the Catholic Church’s record of sex abuse has proven rather timeless.

This isn’t one big coincidence; these crimes are the result of the sexually repressive teachings that the Church “infallibly” supports. The Catholic leadership teaches that homosexuality is wrong while preaching celibacy and abstinence, but doesn’t their credibility go to zero by these sex crimes?

When will humanity stand up and say no?

Image by DAVID ILIFF

“Femicidios”: Unsolved Murders Against Women in Mexico and the Caribbean (Part I)

También en español ”Death to the b**ches, I’m back” read a sign found next to the body of one of the nearly 1,700 Guatemalan women who have been murdered in the past five years. Since 1993, some 500 women of limited means have been killed or disappeared from the streets of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. The authorities have not resolved these female murders. “Women of all ages, educational levels, social-economic backgrounds, races, ethnicities and sexual orientations may be the eventual victim of this extreme form of gender-based violence”, explains the scholar Diana Russell.

While femicide is committed around the world, the border city of Ciudad Juárez’s infamy as the capital of feminicide is by now common knowledge. The term “feminicidio” was first used in the late 1990s to describe a phenomenon of unsolved murders and disappearances in Ciudad Juárez, dating to 1993, the year women’s rights groups first noticed an unusual increase in murders and disappearances of women and girls. It was this alarming rate of violence against women in the border region and the near-absolute impunity for gender crimes that catalyzed transnational activism: the hemispheric “Por la Vida de las Mujeres” (For the Life of Women) initiative launched by the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women’s Rights (known by its Spanish acronym, CLADEM); research on the subject matter; and, eventually, the elaboration of “feminicide.”

Most of the bodies of murdered women exhibit high levels of sexual violence. The murders and disappearances of women occur within the context of a patriarchal society with high levels of sexism, discrimination and misogyny. Mexico, for example, has one of the highest rates of gender violence in the world, with 38 percent of Mexican women affected by physical, sexual or psychological abuse, compared with 33 percent of women worldwide. Two-thirds of female homicides occur in the home, and 67 percent of women in Mexico suffer domestic violence. For Guatemala, the figure is 47 percent.

In Mexico, women’s human rights groups have long held that police failed to respond to gender crimes because “they feared organized crime was involved, or because they were involved themselves, or both.” Police indifference to gender crimes is rooted in a system of illegality so interpenetrated in the state structure that it blurs the distinction between state institutions and criminal networks, and between government agents and criminal agents.

After Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched Operation Chihuahua in 2008, deploying thousands of soldiers and military police to the region, violence and criminality have reached pandemic proportions, together with a disturbing trend of human rights violations committed by the very same security forces sent to restore order.

Parte 2, to come.

Thanks to Eduardo Carrasco for contributing to this story.

Public Opinion: Lesbians vs. Gays

También en español Conversing recently with a friend, the topic of lesbianism came to our attention. Upon the mere mention of girls kissing girls, his instant reaction was, “That’s so hot!” even though one of the young women in this case was treating the other abusively. When I pointed out the contradiction, his reply was, “I mean, that sucks, but c’mon! Seeing girls making out is still pretty hot.”

Sadly, this reaction is all too common when people talk about women who partner with women, though rarely to this extent. However, it does drive home the point that society generally sanctions lesbianism for no other reason than it is between two women. While it may be great that people have accepted this so willingly, it is often for the wrong reasons. Simply seeing girls as “hot” ignores any other factors, including the one in the scenario above.

There is one catch to this unquestioning approval of lesbianism: it does not apply to all same-sex couples. The public opinion is more discriminatory toward male couples. The same people who loudly praise the merits of female couples often openly condemn their male counterparts. To make this even more contradictory, they take this negative viewpoint for the same reason that they take their positive viewpoint with the women: men together versus women together. Women can love women because that’s “hot,” but the same principle does not apply  for men  who love men.

Why does society find it appropriate to laud same-sex coupling when it is between women, but condemn it when between men?

Creative Commons image by: Marco Gomes

Follow up: Adolescent Sexual Health: To Improve or Not to Improve? That is the Question…

También en español After initially postponing the decision to adopt either abstinence-only or abstinence-plus sex education curriculum, the Natchez-Adams School Board in Jackson, Mississippi chooses “both.”

The Board voted to adopt the abstinence-only program, but also voted to require all 12 modules of the “Rise to Your Dreams” curriculum . . . the same curriculum mandatory in abstinence-plus. We wanted to know why.

For one, Board Member David Troutman thought that the topics covered in abstinence-plus were too explicit for sixth graders, believing incorrectly that middle-schoolers don’t have sex until high school. Second, Board President Wayne Barnett believes that the abstinence-only plan allowed for local flexibility, wrongly thinking that their local people know more about the subject of youth sexual health, disregarding years of scientific research and data about what sex education curriculum works. Finally, sometimes it is just easier to choose abstinence-only over other forms of sex education in communities that are more hostile to teen sexuality and anything other than abstinence in the classroom, which is merely an excuse for cowardice and reluctance to stand up and fight for the sexual rights of youth. As Mississippi is full of communities like this, the mixture appears to serve as “middle ground” between the two.

But why was Natchez-Adams’ School Board pressured into making a decision?

In 2011, Governor Haley Barbour signed the House Bill 999, a law that requires all Mississippi school districts to teach either abstinence-only or abstinence-plus. Both curriculums are approved by the state Department of Education (DE), even though they both have drastically different implications for the sexual health of youth as discussed previously. All districts had until June 30 to decide which curriculum to adopt for the 2012-2013 school year.

This law was implemented in response to the fact that Mississippi has the highest teen birth rate in the nation and one of the highest AIDS statistics. In fact, the teen birth rate in Quitman County alone far exceeds the national average. In 2009, teen childbearing cost taxpayers $155,000,000. Sounds shocking? Not really, considering that Mississippi did not require sex education to be taught in schools until House Bill 999. Before this law, only a fraction of teens received formal sex education, with these programs varying widely in approach and accuracy. It’s no wonder why Mississippi is in this atrocious state.

Abstinence-Only

Abstinence-Plus

Tupelo County School District

Houston County School District

Lee Country School District

Natchez-Adams County School District

Corinth County School District

Leflore County School District

Neshoba County School District

Starkville Country School District

Amory County School District

Greenwood County School District

Hattiesburg County School District

Oxford County School District (Initial Abstinence-only decision reversed)

West Point County School District (Unofficial)

Ocean Springs County School District

Jackson County School District

Pascagoula County School District

George County School District

Moss Point County School District

Table: A list of some of the County School Districts and their decisions regarding House Bill 999. (Not a full list)

Although an obvious disadvantage to students who will be subjected to abstinence-only curriculum, let’s hope that the Department of Education will notice the huge disparities between the sexual health of students who were placed in abstinence-only versus abstinence-plus. Maybe then they will enforce universal abstinence-plus sex education for all public schools in Mississippi, as this bill should have mandated. And as time goes on, maybe they will upgrade to comprehensive sex education, cultivating positive sexual behavior and decision-making of Mississippians in ways they could not have even fathomed before.

Creative Commons Image by: Ken Lund

Adolescent Sexual Health: To Improve or Not to Improve? That is the Question…

(También en Español)

The Natchez-Adams School Board in Jackson, Mississippi, is currently deciding whether to adopt abstinence-only or abstinence-plus curriculum. This decision for Mississippi schools, to implement either abstinence-only or abstinence-plus curriculum, is the same as deciding whether or not to improve adolescent sexual health.

Hopefully, Natchez-Adams School Board’s decision will foster homes full of sexually health youth instead of homes crowded with unintended pregnancies and STD/STIs.

The former, abstinence-only education, will be laden with religious ideologies, teach students about the importance of abstinence as the expected standard, and only mention contraceptives in terms of failure rates that are wrong and unscientific. The latter will teach the benefits of abstinence, but also will give comprehensive information about condoms, contraception, and the prevention of sexually transmitted infections and diseases. When you put the two side by side, it seems like a clear-cut decision: abstinence-only curriculum will only further diminish the sexual health of adolescents, while abstinence-plus curriculum has the potential to improve sexual health outcomes. Yet, other schools boards in Jackson and George counties recently adopted abstinence-only models.

But why would any school board adopt such an obviously flawed sex education program?

For one, American society has an extensive history of supporting abstinence-only-until-marriage  (AOUM) programming. This is the result of many factors, such as negative stereotypes associated with adolescent sexuality, an incorrect belief that teaching teens about sex is encouraging them to have premarital sex, AIDS fear, homophobia, heterosexism, sexism, and religious doctrine that dictates premarital sex is a sin.

Second, the American government has bolstered this attitude by providing financial support for schools that teach abstinence-only: the federal government has spent $1.5 billion funding AOUM programs over the last 15 years. This abundance of federal funds lead directly to the proliferation of these unsound programs across America, and why some school boards today still choose abstinence-only education in their schools, despite research proving their ineffectiveness to postpone teenage sexual activities.

In fact, there is overwhelming research that has found multiple issues with AOUM education: censoring vital health care information, jeopardizing adolescent sexual health, stigmatizing the LGBTQ community, purporting harmful gender stereotypes and one religious perspective, and withholding information teens need to make healthy and responsible life decisions. Yet, schools still adopt these programs despite this astounding evidence because they can take advantage of this federal funding.

Sexuality is a part of everyone’s life, no matter what race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, or age a person is. Everyone has the basic human right to access comprehensive sexuality information that is not bias, is scientifically correct, and applicable to their sexuality. Let’s hope that the Natchez-Adams School Board recognizes this and accounts for these proven sexual health benefits of comprehensive sex education when making their final decision on June 30, and students of this district get the comprehensive sex information they need and deserve.

UPDATE: After initially postponing the decision to adopt either abstinence-only or abstinence-plus sex education curriculum, the Natchez-Adams School Board in Jackson, Mississippi chooses “both.” Check next week for a follow up post explaining why the school board was forced to find this middle ground.

Part 2: Proclamation of Masturbation: Joycelyn Elders Gives Masturbation a Thumbs Up

previous Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders

(También en Español)

“We must know that if we want to have a sexually healthy society, it’s about education, education, education,” says Joycelyn Elders, MD.

With 9.5 million teens obtaining a sexually transmitted infection (STI) and 750,000 becoming pregnant per year in the United States, it is no wonder why Elders asserts that comprehensive sexuality education is the key to a sexually healthy world. In order to help remedy this, Elders teamed up with the University of Minnesota Medical School’s Program in Human Sexuality (PHS) to advance sexual health education not only in America, but globally. Together, Elders and PHS established the Joycelyn Elders Chair in Sexual Health Education. The Elders Chair will work with PHS to create comprehensive life-long sexual education curricula, increase the number of health care providers trained in sexual health care, and expand scientific research in sexuality education. However, Elders will not hold the chair position herself, but will still be involved with the program. Elders currently gives on-campus lectures, including her presentation entitled, “Revolutionizing Our Sexually Dysfunctional Society: Are Americans Ready to Talk, Listen, and Learn?”

Perhaps Americans are ready to talk, listen, and learn.

In 2008, the California State Board of Education developed and passed California’s (CA) first set of health education standards, which included comprehensive sex education. Under this Sexual Health and HIV/AIDS Prevention Act, K-12 sex education programing must cover topics about STDs, contraception, condoms, pregnancy, and violence. Furthermore, instruction and materials must be age-appropriate, medically accurate and objective, and representative for students of all races, genders, sexual orientations, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and pupils with disabilities. Sounds great, right?

If you take a closer look, CA is still coming up short. CA received the rating of C+ in Young People’s Sexual Health from Amplify, a project of Advocates for Youth, a well-known organization that champions efforts to help young people make informed and responsible decisions about their reproductive and sexual health. Why? Because compared to the national average, CA has a high teen pregnancy rate (15th highest in the nation), while its AIDS rate tracks with national rates and STI rates only slightly lower than the national rate. Although this act has brought CA a monumental step closer to achieving the goal of a sexually healthy youth, there is more room for improvement.

You might be wondering, “Why only California? What about other states? If the goal is to have a sexually healthy nation, then why aren’t there national standards for comprehensive sexuality education?” Well, that’s because the bill is still sitting in Congress. On November 2nd, 2011, Senator Frank Lautenberg and Representative Barbara Lee told the federal government to stand up and participate in the legalization of comprehensive sex education for the nation: they introduced the Real Education for Healthy Youth Act (H.R.3324). This act lays out a comprehensive, age-appropriate, and holistic vision for sex education policy in the U.S.

This act recognizes that young people have a right to sexual health information–the first federal legislation ever to have done so. Through the federal government, this act creates national standards for sex education that have profoundly positive effects on the sexual health of American youth. First, it prepares young people to make informed, responsible, and healthy decisions about relationships and sexual health. Second, this act also includes grants for comprehensive sex education programs for adolescents and young adults in institutions of higher education. Third, it requires all funded programs to be inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and heterosexual youth and meet the needs of young people who are and are not sexually active. Finally, this act highlights the importance of and provides resources for teacher training. (Other highlights not mentioned in this article. See full description here.)

To assert further that a national standard for sex education can and should be adopted, in January 2012, Future of Sex Education (FoSE) Project launched the National Sexuality Education Standards for K-12, which set the new gold standard for sex education in America. Founded by Advocates for Youth, Answer, and the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SEICUS), FoSE aims to create a national dialogue about the future of sex education and to promote the institutionalization of comprehensive sex education in public schools. Moreover, FoSE developed these standards to address the inconsistent implementations of sexuality education nationwide and the limited time allocated to teaching the topic. Hence, having national standards throughout schooling provides students with the knowledge needed to make the right decisions about their sexual health, no matter where they happen to live in the U.S., in a way they can understand and utilize as they go through different developmental stages.

Abstinence-only propaganda in direct opposition to Elder’s message of sexual health education as being key to a sexually healthy society. CC-image: phauly

As California State Board of Education, the Real Education for Healthy Youth Act, and FoSE have shown, comprehensive sexuality education is an ideal that can be reached not only on state levels, but also on a national level. Yet, as everyone can see, much more work still needs to be done to achieve the positive sexual health outcomes that other industrialized nations with already established national comprehensive sex education standards realize, such as the Netherlands.

Americans need to stand up for their sexual rights and demand the comprehensive sex education they deserve from their communities, schools, families, and government. Many notable people and organizations have worked hard to provide us the research, curriculum, and discourse on behalf sexual education and sexual freedom, so now Americans need to take these tools and fight for what is rightfully theirs and what Elders dedicated her life to: a sexually healthy nation.

Proclamation of Masturbation: Joycelyn Elders Gives Masturbation Thumbs Up (Part I)

(También en Español)

previous Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders

In 1994, then Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, MD, proclaimed, “With regard to masturbation, I think that it is something that is a part of human sexuality and a part of something that should perhaps be taught.”

Masturbation being taught in schools? This statement is not one of shock, confusion, and contempt (or even a question) in countries where comprehensive sex education thrives, such as in the Netherlands, but in the United States, it sparked a nation-wide controversy that resulted in the termination of Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders.

So what was the fuss about?

Joycelyn Elders has been a strong, public advocate for comprehensive health education in schools since her days as a pediatrician in Little Rock, Arkansas, in the 1970s. As a chief pediatric resident, she combined a successful clinical practice with research in pediatric endocrinology, which lead her to work with juveniles with insulin-dependent diabetes. Over her tenure of 20 years, she recognized that diabetic females face a health risk if they become pregnant too young. These hazards include spontaneous abortion and possible congenital abnormalities in the infant. In order to limit these threats, Elders found it crucial to talk about the dangers of pregnancy to her patients and distribute contraceptives. The direct result of her doctor-to-patient education was that only one of her 520 juvenile diabetic patients became pregnant. This sparked Elders’ study of sexual behavior and involvement with public sector advocacy.

With these experiences and her passion to address the issue of teen pregnancy, she broke new ground by advocating for in-school clinics that included contraceptive services. Elders was successful in opening 18 school-based health clinics, with some distributing condoms, and expanding sex education throughout Arkansas. Yet, Elders’ work did not stay within state borders, because she understood that there were thousands of young adults in the United States whose sexual behavior went unmonitored and whose irresponsible, uneducated actions were contributing to the country’s notorious reputation of having the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in the industrialized world. Moreover, the rate of sexually transmitted diseases was on the rise, with the scare of AIDS frightening all sexually active people. This unhealthy, apprehensive sexual climate fueled Elders commitment to comprehensive sex education and demand for bolder government involvement and an intense public education campaign.

However, a black woman cannot publicly talk about sex in America for too long without upsetting certain groups and making a few enemies. Elders’ progressive work was catching the eye of both political conservatives, who criticized her effort to increase the government’s role in the private sexual lives of U.S. citizens, and members of some religious groups, who feared that the distribution of condoms would increase sexual activity and rejected sex education in schools as sanctioning abortion.

Just as the single sperm lead to the population of this world, comprehensive sex education should be the single method of sexual health education to teach Earth’s population about sex, sexuality, and sexual health.

Elders contested these outrageous claims by stating that abstinence education does not work because, in the real world, young people will continue to have sex, and that is it the job of adults and the government to turn an irresponsible action into a responsible one. She maintained that this could be accomplished through education: sex education would help prevent unwanted pregnancy from ever occurring, counteracting the practice of abortion.

Even with her courageous and logical retorts to her critics, by the time Surgeon General Elders made her approval of masturbation known at the United Nations World AIDS Day in 1994, the political climate was against her favor. Her suggestion that masturbation was a healthy part of sexuality and should be taught in schools enraged both conservatives and moderates alike. As a result, President Clinton, who personally nominated Elders for the position of Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health Service only a year earlier, forced her to resigned, stating that she demonstrated values that were “contrary to the administration.” To the conservatives, Elders was warped, dangerous, and a lunatic because she was a rare public official who could actually speak lucidly, heroically, and fearlessly about what people didn’t want to hear.

But Elders’ words were exactly what the country needed to hear and to think about. Masturbation is a healthy part of human sexuality and a valid activity to help reduce risky sexual behavior, and it was about time that everyone realized sex education needed to be talked about openly and honestly for the sake of America’s youth and their sexual health.

The U.S. government was afraid to take a stand with Elders in fear of the public perceiving it as perverse and immoral. Yet in reality, in the absence of comprehensive sex education, the abundance of advertisements, television shows, movies, etc., that are laden with sexual innuendo, even some with blatant sexual references, is itself perverse and unjust to all youth.

Young people are bombarded by sexual media, but when seeking answers to their questions about their sexual health and sexuality, the resources are scarce and often completely unavailable. Some phone-text-based sex eduction sites have recently come on the scene and are a good step toward connecting youth directly with answers to their pressing questions.

Elders symbolizes knowledge, education, and truth. She was not afraid to address these issues and answer young people’s questions, which made her powerful as well as threatening and fearsome to the government, conservatives, moderates, and some religious group. And what do people typically do with what they think is threatening to them? Get rid of it. Unfortunately for Elders’ opponents, they could not get rid of her so easily, and she is now breaking new ground at the University of Minnesota Medical School’s Program in Human Sexuality with the Jocelyn Elders Chair in Sexual Health Education.

Female Genital Mutilation in the UK

(También en Español)

News of Note: Medics Offered Genital Mutilation, Report Says

As many as 100,000 women in Britain may have been mutilated in the name of culture and religion, a report claims.

Refuges from other countries, particularly from Africa, perpetuate this “procedure” illegally, while practitioners charge more than $1000 to have the clitoris cut and the wound and vagina stitched.

It’s hard to think of anything that better exemplifies the depth of our world’s sexual repression than the serial genital mutilation practiced all over our planet.

There is absolutely no excuse for this practice, and I can only hope that any culture or religion that embraces such immorality is adequately and rapidly purged from this planet. Global sexual freedom activists unite!

Image source

Afghan schoolgirls poisoned in anti-education attack

(También en Español)

News of Note: Afghan schoolgirls poisoned in anti-education attack

Conservative radicals are suspects in the recent poisoning of about 150 Afghan high school girls who drank contaminated water at their high school, and other similar attacks on female students, teachers, and their buildings.

It may be hard to believe that anyone would literally poison school girls to discourage them (and all girls and women) from having an education, but this type of violence is all too common. These conservative groups have forced women to live in constant fear of physical harm, even acid throwing for something as simple as attending school.

I believe it is necessary to identify these violent and sexist teachings, and to actively speak out against them, irrespective of any religious connections. What else can be done to expunge these deeply sexist ideologies?

Anti-gay adverts pulled from bus campaign in London

(También en Español)

News of Note: Anti-gay adverts pulled from bus campaign by Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, has stopped a Christian advertising campaign by the “christian” group Core Issues Trust that promotes the idea that gay people can be converted to heterosexuality and whose leader, Mike Davidson, said “homoerotic behavior is sinful” and that “reparative therapy” will help queer people  “develop their heterosexual potential.”

In the US,  reparative therapy has been deemed “junk science” by the American Psychological Association and the American Medical Association. And, this month, California is introducing a bill that would outlaw it for all children and require those over 18 must sign a severe consent form to obtain it.

Unfortunately, the world doesn’t have a shortage of hate groups like Core Issues Trust and PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays) and they are clearly not limited to the United States.

As always, we need to identify and label religiously-motivated discrimination and not let it masquerade as anything else.

Creative Commons image by: Jon Bennett