Because their
health class doesn’t always include the safe-sex
lessons that they need, some Chicago teens have taken
matters (and the lessons) into their own hands -- by
staging a new show.
Growing up the
daughter of a conservative Chicago pastor, Pookie, a
16-year-old lesbian, learned little about sex at home, where
“it’s all about God,” she says. A
student at a high school on the city’s north
side, Pookie says she isn’t out to her family
because, if she were, “my dad would blow up.
He’d try to get the lesbian spirit out of me.”
School
hasn’t been any more enlightening: There, Pookie says
in her rapid-fire way of speaking, sex education is
“all about heterosexual sex and heterosexual
diseases…all about a penis and vagina coming together
to make a baby, or a penis and vagina coming together
with a condom to not make a baby.” The only nod
to LGBT students is typically a five-minute
explanation of what the acronym stands for -- a lesson that
benefited her straight classmates more than her, she
says.
Whether
they’re being preached to about abstinence until
marriage, with nary a reference to HIV or other
sexually transmitted diseases, or being taught safe
heterosexual sex, chances are many gay kids aren’t
getting the basic facts about their health needs in
high school. If they speak out—like Pookie did,
once challenging her sex-ed teacher on the lack of
gay-specific info -- they’re often told such content
isn’t in the curriculum. “It was
pointless to try,” Pookie says.
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