From purity rings to ‘Don’t Say Gay,’ the right’s war on sex ed never ended
Recently, the Administration for Children and Families sent letters to health departments in states and territories across the United States, requiring them to remove “all references to gender ideology” from the Personal Responsibility Education Program that provides federal funding for sex education. It’s a disturbing move that mirrors how, from the 1980s through the early 2000s, the Bush administrations threatened to and did cut federal funding to states and schools that refused to teach abstinence-only sex education as part of the Purity Culture Movement. Similar to contemporary “Don’t Say Gay” movements that empower parents seeking to remove references to LGBTQ+ individuals from classrooms and libraries, abstinence-only sex […]