Recently, I had the pleasure of launching a campaign for Lift Louisiana, which we call the #MyLASexEd campaign. The campaign centers around collecting stories from students in Louisiana about their sex ed experiences so that we can see what is working and what isn’t to best prepare and educate our students. This semester, my two main goals were to launch the campaign at Tulane, as well as start outreach to other campus leaders to work on launching the campaign state-wide in the spring.
Earlier in November, I created and hosted a webinar for campus leaders all around Louisiana to teach them about the campaign. Students from all over the state are excited and interested in pursuing the campaign, and now I am working closely with them so that the campaign can launch full-scale next semester. We will be launching #MyLASexEd at LSU, LSU Shreveport and Loyola New Orleans next semester. This means we will both be spreading the message about the importance of comprehensive sex ed statewide, but also collecting experiences from students from all over Louisiana.
In addition to outreach, I launched #MyLASexEd on Tulane’s campus in mid-November. For one week, I tabled on Tulane’s campus daily to collect stories, experiences and selfies from students from all over the nation to compare their sex ed experiences. We collected around 20 stories in total and are looking to collect even more next semester. From the students we spoke to, it became clear that students from New Orleans, when compared to students from other parts of the country, like L.A. or Chicago, were not receiving a very valuable sex ed experience. Many students from Louisiana told me that they either could not remember anything they learned in sex ed, or that they were taught abstinence and nothing else. Very few, if any, of them reported to me that they learned about STIs, safe sex, consent, birth control or healthy sexual relationships. When compared to other students’ stories, such as learning about the prevalence of STIs and how to avoid them, or how to put a condom on and use different forms of birth control, it is clear that students from Louisiana are missing out on some parts of sex ed that could really help them down the road. Interestingly, even students who reported having what they claimed to be fairly comprehensive sex ed stated that they did not learn about non-heterosexual sexual relationships in their sex ed, so it appears as though that is something that could be improved upon nationwide.
I am so excited to have started the process of launching this campaign, and I am so excited to see where we can take it, and the stories we collected, in the future. The goal is to use these stories to present to lawmakers about how Louisiana’s sex ed programs are failing their students. Thus far, the evidence that I have gathered make this clear, and I am excited to start to use these stories to fight for change in LA.